Reference design

Notes

A strong reference design is a quiet competitive weapon because it pulls the supplier's own companion chips into the BOM.

Overview

A reference design is a complete, tested example of a circuit or system, with schematics, a bill of materials, board layout files and often software, that a chip supplier publishes so that customers can copy or adapt it instead of starting from scratch. It shows how the supplier's parts are meant to be used together and gives measured results to prove that the design works. It is a starting point for the customer's own product rather than a finished one, and the assembled board itself is often not for sale.

How it works

Supplier application teams choose a target application, such as a motor drive, a power supply or a video link, and design a working circuit around their own devices. They build and test it, then publish the design files: schematic, bill of materials, PCB layout and Gerber files, CAD symbols for the parts, and a design guide or test report with measured performance. Some also include simulation files, firmware or a configuration tool.

Customers download the files and change them to fit their product, often keeping the critical parts of the layout and the recommended components. Because the design names specific parts, it tends to bring the supplier's other devices with it, such as the clock generators, regulators and level translators around the main chip. That is commercially important: a published reference design makes it more likely that equipment makers build the supplier's parts into their products.

Reference designs have limits. They are validated for a defined set of conditions and are usually supplied for evaluation, so customers still need to review, re-test and qualify their own version against their own requirements and regulations.

Examples

• TI's TIDA-00309, which combines four DisplayPort video sources into one 10.8 Gb/s serial link and is published with schematic, bill of materials, Gerber files and a test report.
• TI verified designs, which pair theory and part selection with simulation, a complete schematic and layout, a bill of materials and measured performance.
• A radar receiver reference design built around a multi-gigasample RF sampling ADC, showing how to clock and connect the converter.
• VIA's OpenBook, a laptop reference design released openly so that other manufacturers could build on it.

Why it matters

Reference designs shorten development for customers and win business for suppliers. Reference design engineers and application engineers create them, field application engineers use them to support customers, and product marketing uses them to show what a new chip can do in a real application.

In the chip lifecycle, reference designs are planned alongside a new product, built once samples are available, released around product launch, and kept up to date through production as customers design the chip into their systems.

It matters most to: Applications Engineering Manager, Field Applications Engineer, Product Marketing Manager, Reference Design and EVK Engineer, Reference Design Engineer

Common confusions

Not the same as an evaluation board

An evaluation board is a physical board for measuring a chip in the lab. A reference design is a set of files for a complete application circuit, which may or may not exist as a board you can buy.

Not the same as an application note

An application note explains a technique or answers a design question, often with example circuits. A reference design is a complete, tested design intended to be copied.

Sources

1. TIDA-00309 reference design (opens in a new tab), Texas Instruments, 2026-10-22
2. Measuring Bit Errors in the Output Word of an A/D Converter (TI Designs verified design SLAA582, April 2013) (opens in a new tab), Texas Instruments, 2026-10-22
3. High-speed ADCs (10 MSPS and above) (opens in a new tab), Texas Instruments, 2026-10-22
4. Reference design (Wikipedia) (opens in a new tab), Wikimedia Foundation, 2026-10-22

Related terms

• Design-in
• Attach rate
• Platform
• BOM
• Evaluation board
• Application note

Where it appears on the Hub

Used on 27 pages of the Hub. In each group, the pages that mention it most come first.