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The past year has raised the scope for innovation in chip design to a level unlike anything the industry has ever seen before. As the requirements from different industries and the chips that serve them become more complex, so does the design and verification process. The uptake of multi-die solutions has been considerable, and designers are becoming steadily more adept as they apply AI to their work. We have also witnessed the cloud feature more prominently to enable scale and flexibility, and lower costs.

Here is a look at the key developments in these areas and more that made 2023 such an exciting year in the electronics industry.

Chip Designers Reap Productivity Benefits

Just as AI is changing the way chip designs look, it is also having a profound impact on the way designers work, helping them achieve higher levels of productivity and better outcomes. As we noted in July, designers are raising the bar in terms of possibility and quality every few months. Impressive as this has been, it will become harder as everything shrinks. STMicroelectronics and Microsoft offered two examples of how AI has helped designers multiply productivity by up to 3x and reduce power dissipation by 15%. To further enhance engineering productivity, we launched Synopsys.ai Copilot in November, bringing a generative AI-based smart assistant to our EDA flow. 

Another example of enabling productivity in the EDA space is our collaboration with AMD to launch 4th Gen AMD EPYC? processors with AMD 3D V-Cache? technology. Whether designers are developing monolithic SoCs or multi-die systems for high-performance computing (HPC) applications, the accelerated processing speed helps them get their products to market faster.

Beyond the design desk, we saw how deep-learning models are driving advances in computer vision, integral for autonomous driving and increasingly prevalent in mobile phones, security systems, and digital personal assistants. We are also starting to see the coexistence of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and transformers, which use deep learning to process all input data at once, leading to more accurate vision processing applications.

Overcoming Compute Capacity Limitations with the Cloud

In addition to harnessing AI, the cloud has become another vital tool for many industries due its flexibility and scalability. EDA tools and chip design workloads continue to migrate to the cloud, given ever-increasing compute demands, accelerated time-to-market requirements, evolving cyberthreats, and the need for flexible, cost-effective storage.

That¡¯s why we unveiled Synopsys Cloud 4.0 in July to deliver e-commerce and Synopsys ZeBu? cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) flows with scalable, unlimited compute capacity. While the technology at work is complex, the goal is simple: to help semiconductor companies drive innovation and design high-performing chips faster. The 4.0 release features the latest SaaS instance, bringing silicon photonics to a lineup that includes analog, digital, and verification SaaS instances for accelerated time to market. And in November, we introduced the Synopsys Cloud OpenLink program, which supports seamless interoperability for multi-vendor flows on Synopsys Cloud, giving designers new levels of design freedom.

Collective Effort: How Collaboration Is Enabling Progress

As an industry, we are always stronger together. Indeed, we see collaboration as our most advanced tool. The designing of multi-die systems is one rapidly evolving area where we see collaboration hastening adoption. Our partnership with Samsung Foundry led to the development of Samsung Foundry¡¯s Multi-Die System Implementation Flow with Synopsys 3DIC Compiler, supporting Samsung process nodes and I-Cube? and X-Cube? technologies. Working together, we are helping design teams achieve their PPA goals with multi-die systems to rise to the challenge of complex applications such as AI, HPC, and automotive.

A collaboration with Ansys, Keysight Technologies, and TSMC saw the development of a radio frequency (RF) design reference flow for the TSMC 16 nm FinFET Compact Technology (16FFC). As an enabler of ICs for autonomous systems such as automotive radar, we are one step closer toward realizing ambitious autonomous driving dreams.

Further initiatives with TSMC included the to enable faster delivery and higher quality of advanced-node SoCs and the launch of the industry¡¯s broadest portfolio of for TSMC¡¯s N5A process.

We also around the unveiling of Arm? Total Compute 91³Ô¹ÏÍø 2023 (TCS23) at Computex. Synopsys system-level solutions for the platform include Synopsys.ai, Synopsys Interface and Security IP, and Synopsys Silicon Lifecycle Management PVT IP. These advancements build on decades of collaboration between the two companies to accelerate delivery of high-performance, efficient Arm-based SoCs for high-end smartphones and virtual reality applications.

Synopsys Leadership: Dawn of a New Era

While 2023 saw some remarkable EDA and IP achievements, 2024 promises to kick off a new era. As of January 1, 2024,  Sassine Ghazi will become president and CEO, with Aart de Geus taking on the role of executive chair. Ghazi has spent 25 years at Synopsys and embodies our ¡°Yes, if ¡­¡± philosophy.

¡°As I step into the role of CEO, I am fueled by an unwavering determination to build upon our strong foundation, drive innovation, and propel Synopsys to even greater heights of success,¡± Ghazi said.

Other major appointments from 2023 that lay the foundation for an exciting 2024 included that of and . In an interview, our CFO Shelagh Glaser shared a helpful perspective on breaking the glass ceiling: ¡°Traditionally, women are coached on leadership behavior and not on the business. I don¡¯t care how straight you sit at the table. The people that get ahead in life are people that change and drive business impact. Be that person.¡±

Embracing change is part of our cultural makeup. As ever, uncertainty abounds in the world but so does opportunity. We are looking forward to a highly stimulating 2024 and wish you and your loved ones the very best.