Cloud Computing Technology for EDA

Cloud-based electronic design automation (EDA) tools provide many benefits for chip makers seeking to improve their products' overall quality and quantity.

Elasticity and Scalability

Cloud computing provides both elasticity and scalability for chip design and verification. Scalability and elasticity differ mainly in the scope of resources involved. Elasticity involves dynamically allocating memory and CPU resources, while scalability entails adding new servers to meet static demand growth.

Elasticity allows you to scale computer processing, memory, and storage capacity to meet changing demands. With elasticity, you can scale up your EDA infrastructure in minutes when designing or verifying chips. You can easily shrink it back down when you are done. You simply need to notify the orchestrator in the cloud environment if you require more or less capacity, and they will make the changes for you.

Scalability enables you to add and remove resources to meet your changing processing needs within the confines of existing infrastructure. With scalability, you can add virtual servers instead of purchasing more physical hardware. You can also alter your system based on evolving goals. Your business can stay competitive by adapting to changing resource requirements, increasing the speed and ease of chip design.

Cost Savings

Cloud computing technology makes economic sense for EDA. The chip design lifecycle requires different amounts of computing resources at different stages. Some stages, such as verification and simulation, require a lot of resources, while others don't.

Companies must purchase the computing resources needed for verification. Most of that hardware, however, lies idle during less compute-intensive phases. As a result, this expensive computing equipment can become a financial burden.

With the cloud, you can scale up or down computing resources as needed while only paying for what you use.

Shorter Time to Market

Cloud computing technology reduces chip makers' time to market. Cloud computing enables chip makers to accelerate physical verification, simulation, and filling.

With cloud computing, you can access scalable storage, big data analytics, and enhanced productivity with collaboration tools for reviews and feedback.

Leveraging the enormous amount of computing power is key to minimizing chip development cycle times and delivering more powerful chips faster.

Innovation

Chip companies are constantly under pressure to innovate. Cloud providers offer ready-to-use tools and services to help them. You can use these tools and services immediately instead of having to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools. 

Chip design teams use a variety of software tools across the EDA ecosystem simultaneously. Organizations can overcome silos between research, design, and development by removing storage and compute constraints and implementing cloud-native tools. 

Security

The chip industry has been slow to adopt cloud computing technology due to concerns over intellectual property (IP) and other highly sensitive data. Cloud providers have responded by enhancing and extending security measures.

Cloud providers have specifically developed a rich set of security tools to protect the data their clients have entrusted to them. In many ways, the cloud has much stronger security than on-premise tools.

With features like granular permissions and access management, cloud providers can restrict access to sensitive data so that only the employees who need it can use it. This process significantly reduces malicious actors' attack surfaces.

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!