Rigoron: "We will eventually cross the chasm of EDA and become the variable that changes th

On April 14 this year, according to Bloomberg News, the US EDA software company Synopsys is being investigated by the US Department of Commerce. The U.S. Department of Commerce believes that Synopsys is suspected of providing chip designs and software to Huawei's HiSilicon semiconductor unit for production at SMIC.

So what is EDA software?

Classified by function, EDA software can be roughly divided into three categories - design tools, simulation tools, and production tools.

Design tools are equivalent to the wonderful pen in the hands of chip design manufacturers, which can help them quickly complete paper processes such as circuit design and layout design;

The responsibility of the simulation tool is to test the chip manufacturing, packaging, and application to check whether there are logic problems;

Production tools have become a good partner for fabs and packaging and testing plants. They are used in the final production of chips to improve manufacturers' production efficiency and test accuracy.

The importance of EDA software is evident from this

For uninformed semiconductor observers, the performance of chips may depend on chip manufacturers and designers, but without the quality control and layer-by-layer checks of EDA software, everything is empty talk.

This also explains why the United States clearly lists EDA software in the "Business Control List" - if the lithography machine is the shackles of the domestic semiconductor industry in hardware, then EDA is the hard-to-jump in the software field; It is precisely because of this that the US Department of Commerce is so eager to investigate Synopsys' suspected "Litong Huawei HiSilicon" behavior.

In the final analysis, it is unrealistic to expect these large international companies to do their best to bypass the ban to supply China. After all, they have a lot of business in the global market, and the interests of many global markets are more important than a period of more than ten years of cooperation.

However, at present, the domestic EDA market is also booming, and in this dark time, they will become variables that change the balance of leverage.

Self introduction

Shanghai Rigoron Core Design Automation Co., Ltd. was established in April 2021. The company has received investment from the top domestic semiconductor funds. Since its establishment, it has been deeply involved in the field of electronic design automation (EDA) in the field of integrated circuits, aiming to create domestic independent design of integrated circuits. EDA digital sign-off of the whole process and the whole chip optimization system.

2021.8 Released the first domestic digital signoff timing analysis product

2021.10 Serve top domestic chip designers

2021.12 Selected as the top project in the 14th Five-Year Plan

2022.3 Received investment from top semiconductor funds

...

After a year of rapid development, Rigoron Chips has become an emerging EDA enterprise in China. Its core products can reach the international leading level, and it has been widely recognized by well-known IC design companies in the industry.

TCore product: TAI product line

TAI CONSTRAINTS

Without correct constraints, there will be no correct analysis. The correctness and integrity of timing constraints are the prerequisites for correct timing analysis sign-off. In recent years, increasingly complex SOC chip systems have brought infinite challenges to timing constraint management. TAI Constraints has various functions such as constraint generation, management, and verification, which makes the time-consuming and error-prone constraint signing simple and easy.

TAI STA

Static timing analysis is the gatekeeper of chip performance. It guides tools such as P&R and ECO to continuously improve and improve the timing performance of chips. TAI STA not only inspects all timing paths in detail and analyzes latency with high precision, but also provides unique high-speed iteration solutions for large-scale, high-complexity chips such as GPU, CPU, 5G, and SOC to accelerate the design process. TAI STA fully supports various STA functions, such as GBA, PBA, LVF, MMMC, etc.

TAI POWER & IREM

Chip power and its corresponding effects are increasingly important in modern chip design. The TAI system uses modern computing architecture to assist in power analysis, quickly pointing out possible hidden dangers for designers in advance. The combination of power analysis, IR-drop and TAI STA engine brings users complete chip analysis information, and one-stop instructions on how to repair. TAI Power and IREM products will be launched.

Epilogue

In the past ten years, as the country has more power to intervene in the chip industry, as more and more returnee scientists return to China to establish chip companies, and as more and more downstream customers are willing to give domestic system orders, China's chips It just started to sparkle.

Domestic EDA tools will enter the field of view of domestic Fabless, gain the opportunity to expand market share, and then obtain the opportunity to cooperate with wafer fabs with advanced manufacturing process. The first year of domestic EDA may begin with this.