Chiplets Need A New Workflow


Key Takeaways: Chiplet design turns semiconductor development into a system-level problem, requiring coordinated workflows across design, packaging, verification, test, and reliability. Successful chiplet workflows must handle multi-physics challenges — especially thermal, mechanical, power, and signal integrity — early enough to reduce costly failures before assembly and tape-out. ... » read more

Creating Agentic EDA Methodologies


Key takeaways Agentic methodologies need to be able to reason across multiple data formats and abstractions. It is not clear how much data from previous designs is useful in new designs. Standards may help, but the lack of them may only impact cost. The relationship between tools and methodologies is bidirectional. Tools enable methodologies, and methodologies are dependent ... » read more

Using Data And AI More Effectively In EDA


Key Takeaways The data being produced by EDA tools tends to be for human consumption and has weak semantics. Agents are attempting to create actionable information from unstructured data. The Model Context Protocol may provide AI with access to better data. Semiconductor design generates a lot of data, but how much of that is useful or currently being used by AI tools? And h... » read more

2025 – A Year Of Change And Anticipation


2025 has certainly been a year of unexpected changes. These had a significant impact on the semiconductor industry and everything that supports it. Not all the changes have been bad, but flexibility has been a requirement for continued success or to make the most of an opportunity provided. Some industries, such as aerospace and defense, are seeing a significant boost around the world. Data ... » read more

Slow Progress On Generative EDA


Progress is being made in generative EDA, but the lack of training data remains the biggest problem. Some areas are finding ways around this. Generative AI, driven by large language models (LLMs), stormed into the world just two years ago, and since then has worked its way into almost every aspect of our lives. Some people love it, others hate it, and some even give dire warnings about machi... » read more

The Cost Of EDA Data Storage And Processing Efficiency


Engineering teams are turning to the cloud to process and store increasing amounts of EDA data, but while the compute resources in hyperscale data centers are virtually unlimited, the move can add costs, slow access to data, and raise new concerns about sustainability. For complex chip designs, the elasticity of the cloud is a huge bonus. With advanced-node chips and packaging, the amount of... » read more

Blog Review: April 24


Cadence's Vatsal Patel notes the factors that make high-bandwidth memory ideal for AI, such as improved bandwidth and area from vertical stacking and power reduction features like data bus inversion. Synopsys' Rob van Blommestein points to early power network analysis as a way to ensure that enough power is delivered to each transistor to mitigate potential power-related issues within the ch... » read more

EDA Back On Investors’ Radar


EDA is transforming from a staid but strategic sector into a hot investment market, fueled by strong earnings and growth, a clamoring for leading-edge and increasingly customized designs across new and existing markets, and the rollout of advanced technologies such as AI for a range of tools that will be needed to develop new architectures with much greater performance per watt. A confluence... » read more

2023: A Good Year For Semiconductors


Looking back, 2023 has had more than its fair share of surprises, but who were the winners and losers? The good news is that by the end of the year, almost everyone was happy. That is not how we exited 2022, where there was overcapacity, inventories had built up in many parts of the industry, and few sectors — apart from data centers — were seeing much growth. The supposed new leaders we... » read more

Challenges Grow For Data Management And Sharing In EDA


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to talk about more openness in EDA data, how increased complexity is affecting time to working silicon, and the impact of geopolitics, with Joseph Sawicki, executive vice president for IC EDA at Siemens Digital Industries Software; John Kibarian, president and CEO of PDF Solutions; John Lee, general manager and vice president of Ansys' Semiconductor Business U... » read more

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