boardtrace.com

What It Is

HDL Works is an EDA tool vendor headquartered in Ede, the Netherlands. Founded in 2004, it focuses on VHDL/Verilog design entry, design browsing, linting, documentation generation, and FPGA/PCB pin and cross-board interconnect verification. Its product portfolio includes BoardTrace, EASE, HDL Companion, IO Checker, Scriptum, and FLDL2HDL, all available on Windows or Linux.

Core Capabilities

BoardTrace focuses on visualization and verification of interconnects across multiple PCBs, backplanes, connectors, rear panels, and large devices. It supports different netlist formats and can use regular-expression rules to match differences in signal names. Automatic rule generation can cover a large number of connections, helping reduce manual checking. IO Checker is designed for FPGA-to-PCB pin consistency checks, covering user I/O, power, ground, constraint file creation/updating, and schematic symbol generation. EASE provides graphical HDL design entry, combining block diagrams, state diagrams, truth tables, and HDL code to generate VHDL or Verilog. HDL Companion offers design overview, verification, linting, and HTML output. Scriptum is a free VHDL/Verilog editor with syntax highlighting, code folding, templates, and a multi-document interface.

Languages, Integrations, and Documentation

Language support covers VHDL, Verilog, and SystemVerilog. Scriptum also supports configuration and source files such as Tcl, SystemC, C/C++, Xilinx XDC/UCF, Altera QSF, and Lattice LPF. In terms of ecosystem, the site mentions integration with mainstream simulation and synthesis tools, support for an Altium Designer extension, and coverage of FPGA vendors including Altera/Intel, AMD/Xilinx, Efinix, Lattice, and Microchip/Microsemi. There are plenty of documentation entry points, including datasheets, white papers, videos, release updates, software downloads, and support pages, but no API/SDK or Chinese-language documentation was found.

Pricing and Licensing

This is a typical closed-source commercial desktop software licensing model. EASE perpetual licenses start at around EUR 5,580, while HDL Companion starts at around EUR 1,320. IO Checker is mainly offered as a one-year floating site license, starting at about EUR 850. BoardTrace starts at EUR 250 for a one-year license for a small single-board setup, while complex configurations require a quote. Scriptum is free. Node-locked licenses are Windows-only, while floating licenses can be used on Windows/Linux, but are subject to a license server radius restriction.

Pros, Cons, and Best Fit

The main advantage is that these tools closely match FPGA/PCB engineering workflows, especially for large-scale pinouts, cross-board connections, and inconsistent naming scenarios. Trial, pricing, and educational licensing information is also relatively transparent. The downside is that the product model feels traditional, with no clear emphasis on cloud collaboration, self-hosting, open APIs, or modern DevOps integration. It is best suited to hardware teams, aerospace and defense, industrial control, university labs, and other users that need serious HDL and PCB verification.

Access from China

The crawled text did not provide information on China-based nodes, RMB payments, local resellers, or ICP filing, so access from China is unknown. If access or procurement is restricted, alternatives or complementary tools may include Altium Designer, Cadence Allegro/OrCAD, Siemens EDA, the built-in constraint checking in Vivado/Quartus, and Sigasi.