The Electronic Design Interchange Format (EDIF) is a neutral data format, through which electronic design information can be exchanged between CAD/CAE systems, semiconductor foundries, fabrication and assembly facilities, etc. The EDIF standard has been under development since November 1983. This paper discusses the history of its development, the organization which supports it, the goals and guidelines followed by the professionals who are developing the standard, and numerous details of the standard itself. Also, an analysis of how well the standard currently covers today's electronic design information is presented, as well as a methodology for developing translators which read and write the format.

The design processes are basically the same at all levels of applications - chip, board and system. Many businesses involved with design find themselves with a combination of manual methods and a variety of CA tools to accomplish different portions of this process. This implies that the information, or database, is found in a variety of media forms: on paper, on system A application B, on system C application D, etc. There is a tremendous need at this point in the CA tools industry's development to offer means by which these different parts of the design process, manual and automated, can transfer information intelligently between applications which may be resident on different platforms. Given sufficient time, and barring major differences between the various proponents, the ongoing development of industry-wide standards are possibly the solution to many of these issues.