It's not a code-heavy advanced place-and-route or verification tool, but the application does provide estimates for things like die size, yield, good die per wafer, and price per good die, for process nodes from 0.6 micron to 45 nm on wafer sizes from 150 mm to 300 mm.

The application, known as iWafer, was created by Michael Sanie, a 20-year EDA and semiconductor industry veteran. Sanie has held executive and senior marketing positions at Calypto, Cadence Design Systems, Numerical Technologies and Actel, among others.

Sanie said the application was created entirely through homegrown code and graphics. He estimated that he spent approximately 200 hours creating it, mostly in the evenings, a couple of hours at a time. The point of the project was to have fun and also get a feel for what it took to create an iPhone application, Sanie said.

"I wanted to see how the whole ecosystem works," he said.

So far, Sanie said, the application, which is in the iPhone's $9.99 price bracket, has had about 100 downloads. He has received a lot of positive feedback and is aware that ASIC design service vendors and foundry representatives are using the tool in meetings with customers to generate estimates.

Sanie has also held negotiations with a couple companies that have shown interest in sponsoring a vendor-specific version of the tool, he said. So far, he has yet to reach an agreement, but hopes that iWafer might be adopted and used as a free giveaway around the Design Automation Conference, for example.

"I don't look at it as a money maker," Sanie said. "It's more like a little bit of fun for me. But I do get some satisfaction from the positive feedback I've received."

Sanie said he has done quite a bit of research and believes that iWafer is the only EDA or semiconductor industry-specific application available for the iPhone.