A universal circuit design environment that designs universal circuits that can be applied to a variety of applications is disclosed. The system cross-references attribute requirements of each contemplated application against components to select application set components that are used to populate the universal design circuit environment for use in a universal circuit design. The set components are capable of satisfying every resolvable attribute requirement of the variety of applications, and the universal circuit may be designed with specialized inputs to set some attributes of the universal circuit. Preferably, the footprint of each set component and universal circuit is preserved between versions to allow for optimized updating between component versions.