As a pioneer and practitioner in the EDA industry, Siemens EDA (formerly Mentor Graphics) has been committed to providing the industry’s comprehensive portfolio of EDA software, hardware and services. Since it was acquired by Siemens in 2017, Siemens EDA has continuously improved its full-chain solutions covering IC design and verification, IC packaging and manufacturing, electronic systems, and extending to product lifecycle management (PLM) and analysis. The technical potential of software synergy helps enterprises to accelerate the pace of digital transformation from the bottom, and build a “base” for digital innovation for enterprises.
Two directions to help customers accelerate time-to-market
As the saying goes, “the world’s martial arts can only be broken quickly”.
Today, with the ever-changing update and iteration rate of electronic products, the rapid introduction of products to the market is one of the core competitiveness of electronic companies, and it is also the core of grasping digital innovation. Siemens EDA has launched a variety of advanced technologies to help customers accelerate the time to market of products, and firmly grasps two basic directions: one is to design ICs oriented to the final system; the other is to build the next-generation electronic system design for customers in advance digital solutions.
First of all, in terms of IC design, Siemens EDA sees the industry’s demand for final system-oriented IC design, and focuses on technology expansion, design expansion and system expansion to provide customers with innovative solutions that can meet the next-generation IC design, so that customers can obtain More cutting-edge designs. For example, Siemens EDA works closely with foundries to provide signoff-quality Calibre physical verification, optical proximity effect correction (RET/OPC) and Tessent test and yield enhancement tools for each new technology node. As well as advanced heterogeneous packaging solutions, customers can use Chiplet and stacked chip methods to develop 2.5D/3D IC packaging products to meet customer requirements for key indicators such as performance, power consumption, and area (PPA). In addition, its newly launched Symphony Pro platform can provide a more comprehensive and intuitive visual debugging integrated environment, and supports the new Accellera standardized verification method, which enables customers to increase production efficiency by 10 times compared to traditional solutions.
At the same time, Siemens EDA can build digital solutions for next-generation electronic system design for customers in advance, helping customers to be more forward-looking when developing products. In this regard, Siemens EDA mainly has five core competencies.
First, Siemens EDA can build a new generation of PCB design environment for design companies, which means that design companies can not only expand according to the complexity of the design, but also create a digital thread from design to manufacturing, so that design teams and manufacturing departments can Stay up-to-date on project status with a digital thread, and even collaborate across engineering disciplines on a global scale.
Second, Siemens EDA uses MBSE (Model-Based Systems Engineering) to model the functions of subsystems from the fields of electronics, mechanics, and software, and integrate them into a system architecture-level synthesis before the design begins. in the digital twin.
Third, Siemens EDA can build verification driven by digital prototypes, thus building a simulation verification technology covering the entire R&D process, and “shifting” the verification process to the design stage, thereby reducing redesign links and accelerating product delivery cycles. Achieve cost reduction and efficiency increase.
Fourth, Siemens EDA can also build the concept and technology of system-level design, so as to establish a high-to-low mapping decomposition, and realize a reference architecture design to accelerate the product development process.
Fifth, Siemens EDA enhances supply chain resilience through Siemens’ complete digital integrated system design platform, and combines seamless collaboration with manufacturing, product lifecycle management (PLM) and enterprise processes to help companies accelerate digital transformation.
Siemens EDA’s goals in chip design
Digital development has driven many companies to start a wave of self-developed chips, and has also promoted the development of the chip design industry. However, in the process of chip design, enterprises will encounter various difficulties. During this process, Siemens EDA is committed to solving various difficulties and challenges faced by customers in the field of chip design, and regards them as important one of the development goals. Siemens EDA can mainly solve three problems for customers in the field of chip design: realize more advanced process technology, realize the expansion of design scale, and realize the expansion of system scale.
Nowadays, the demand for advanced technology in the industry is getting stronger and stronger, and the requirements for EDA in chip design are also getting higher and higher. In order to help customers realize more advanced processes, Siemens EDA provides customers with a variety of solutions in terms of new process nodes, such as Calibre, Tessent, Solido and other product lines, so as to help customers closely follow the pace of Moore’s Law.
As the chip process node continues to shrink, it is necessary to consider integrating more transistors in a smaller space during chip design, and the design scheme needs to be continuously updated during the design process. Therefore, the scale of the design is also becoming larger and larger. , which also puts higher demands on EDA. Siemens EDA launched the Calibre series of tools mPower can achieve larger design scale. mPower provides a nearly infinitely scalable solution for IC power integrity verification through distributed computing, enabling comprehensive power, electromigration (EM), and voltage drop ( IR) analysis.
Nowadays, many chip manufacturers have begun to pursue the expansion of system scale, but this will greatly increase the workload, and how to solve this problem is also a difficulty that many manufacturers need to face. In order to pursue the expansion of system scale, manufacturers will integrate chips, software, and systems at the same time, instead of making chips first, and then making systems and software. Therefore, for EDA manufacturers, it is extremely critical to use digital twin technology to enable software, machinery and chips to be verified and designed at the same time.
The PAVE360 solution launched by Siemens EDA in May 2019 is a closed-loop system design and simulation platform for smart cars. It can be used to accelerate SoC design, provide high-precision digital twin simulation from chip to vehicle, and allow multiple Multiple suppliers and other providers work together to develop and test each component of the vehicle based on a variety of complex simulation scenarios, including power, performance and thermal specifications, to ensure that it meets system requirements and meets vehicle safety requirements.
Contribute to China’s semiconductor industry
Today, China’s semiconductor industry is also booming, providing many market opportunities and development platforms for more overseas semiconductor companies. For Siemens EDA, while witnessing the vigorous development of China’s semiconductor industry, it has also built many innovative foundations for China’s semiconductor industry.
This year marks the 150th year that Siemens has entered China, and the 33rd year that Siemens EDA has established itself in China. As the world’s first EDA company to enter the Chinese market, Siemens EDA has been committed to uniting industry-university-research forces to support the development of China’s semiconductor industry, provide technical support services for many Chinese integrated circuit manufacturers, and participate in the IC incubation of the Ministry of Science and Technology for many times. Construction of the base.
In response to the “hard to find” talent problem in China’s EDA field, Siemens EDA is committed to promoting “blood transfusion” and “hematopoiesis” in talent training in China’s semiconductor industry, and actively deepens a number of cooperation with schools and enterprises to contribute to the sustainable development of the industry. power. So far, Siemens EDA has cooperated with more than 80 colleges and universities in China, covering the fields of integrated circuit design, electronic system design and automotive electronic design. Continue to work hard to build a “talent reservoir” in China’s industry.
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