OpenAccess is a community effort to provide true interoperability, not just data exchange, among IC design tools through an open standard data API and reference database supporting that API for IC design. The OpenAccess Coalition is a neutral organization of industry leaders that are leading this effort operating under Si2 bylaws.

The OpenAccess API is a C++ program interface to IC design data. The API and reference implementation  provide a high performance, high capacity electronic design database with architecture designed for easy integration and fast application development. Access to the reference database source code is provided to allow companies to offer contributions to future database enhancements and add proprietary extensions. It will also allow for this database to be used in production environments where software maintenance is critical.

Today's design environments are a complicated mix of design tools containing proprietary applications and associated databases, and with incompatible file formats and syntaxes. IC CAD engineers spend an inordinate amount of time integrating them with thousands of lines of translator code. The resulting flows are fragile and error-prone. As well, they are inefficient and result in longer IC design cycle times.

Engineered for industry-wide interoperability, the OpenAccess database allows users to construct flows incorporating design tools from multiple sources to best suit their needs.

The motivation of the OpenAccess Coalition (OAC) is to provide an open standard for IC design access and supporting software to address this need, and to get adoption of that standard within the EDA industry and university research. The goals are to provide the OAC partners with technology and support that will:

• Provide tight integration and incremental design flows using design tools and data from multiple sources
• Ease integration of internally developed tools with those from EDA suppliers
• Provide more cost effective technology transfer of university research into the design flow
• Simplify technology sharing for collaborative development between business partners for design tools and design data