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Insight into Cloud Adoption Resistance in the Chip Design World

By Sridhar Panchapakesan, Senior Director, Cloud Engagements

Table of Contents

Benefits of Cloud Adoption for Chip Design and Verification
Synopsys Cloud FlexEDA Boosts Performance
Synopsys, EDA, and the Cloud

Introducing Synopsys Cloud

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For the chip design community, it has taken some time to become comfortable with cloud adoption. Four main reasons contributed to their hesitancy.

Concern over data and intellectual property (IP) security was the foundation for much of the industry’s resistance. Losing control of its IP could significantly affect a semiconductor firm’s ability to maintain its competitive advantage.

To meet their customers' demands for innovation, semiconductor companies stay in a constant race to design and develop ever more sophisticated chips. Billions of dollars are at stake in design breakthroughs, so IP security is crucial to these companies.

Second, until recently, chip makers were content to manage their computing requirements using on-site hardware, so there wasn't an urgent need to find an alternative. Also, they’ve invested heavily in on-site computing infrastructure and IT personnel. Moving to the cloud means leaving much of this infrastructure idle and possibly laying off IT employees.

Third, chip-making organizations are concerned that moving to the cloud would open them up to cyberattacks. Few organizations can afford to have their systems locked up by ransomware for an extended period. In addition, rogue code could be inserted into a chip either during development or the manufacturing process, making any system that uses that chip vulnerable to attack.

Fourth, the electronic design automation (EDA) licensing model has been traditionally have not been cloud friendly, making it difficult to adapt to cloud workloads.

Benefits of Cloud Adoption for Chip Design and Verification

As chips become increasingly sophisticated, companies require computing power at scale, which means either expanding private data centers or embracing the cloud. The cloud offers the following benefits for chip design and verification:

Scalability

Cloud computing allows companies to scale up or down at any time without committing to a long-term contract. You can easily scale your system without causing any disruptions or downtime.

Improved Productivity

By deploying cloud services, you can quickly respond to changes in business requirements. Rather than maintaining hardware and software, staff can focus on delivering value with cloud computing.

Cost Savings

Cloud adoption results in infrastructure savings. Instead of investing in data centers and physical servers, simply pay for what you use. The cloud also enables organizations to streamline their overall IT budgets by moving from a CapEx model to an OpEx model.

Unlimited Storage

You can store a virtually unlimited amount of data in the cloud. You no longer need to buy more hard drives or manage an expensive data center to increase storage capacity.

Security

Cloud providers have invested heavily in security over the last few years. They use tools like data encryption and access controls to enforce high-security levels. As a result, chip designers no longer need to worry about their IP and proprietary data security when moving operations to the cloud.

Synopsys Cloud FlexEDA Boosts Performance

With Synopsys Cloud FlexEDA, you can take cloud-based EDA to the next level. Our platform lets you focus on designing chips rather than managing infrastructure.

You can run unlimited parallel and regression jobs on demand with our cloud metering technology, cutting the wait from weeks to minutes. Because we remove arbitrary resource constraints, everything is always available.

Our unlimited EDA licenses on demand allow you to manage tools and compute resources without traditional license restrictions.

Synopsys Cloud ensures complete data isolation and encryption during transit and at rest to ensure data and IP security. Before every release, we use our software integrity platform to identify and eliminate vulnerabilities. We offer multi-factor authentication with role-based access, workload protection, vulnerability management, and round-the-clock incident response.

Synopsys, EDA, and the Cloud

Synopsys is the industry’s largest provider of electronic design automation (EDA) technology used in the design and verification of semiconductor devices, or chips. With Synopsys Cloud, we’re taking EDA to new heights, combining the availability of advanced compute and storage infrastructure with unlimited access to EDA software licenses on-demand so you can focus on what you do best – designing chips, faster. Delivering cloud-native EDA tools and pre-optimized hardware platforms, an extremely flexible business model, and a modern customer experience, Synopsys has reimagined the future of chip design on the cloud, without disrupting proven workflows.

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Synopsys technology drives innovations that change how people work and play using high-performance silicon chips. Let Synopsys power your innovation journey with cloud-based EDA tools. Sign up to try Synopsys Cloud for free!

About The Author

Sridhar Panchapakesan is the Senior Director, Cloud Engagements at Synopsys, responsible for enabling customers to successfully adopt cloud solutions for their EDA workflows. He drives cloud-centric initiatives, marketing, and collaboration efforts with foundry partners, cloud vendors and strategic customers at Synopsys. He has 25+ years’ experience in the EDA industry and is especially skilled in managing and driving business-critical engagements at top-tier customers. He has a MBA degree from the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley and a MSEE from the University of Houston.