“For end-user designers who need to consider everything from chip design to packaging, Cadence provides end-to-end SW solutions to help solve complex semiconductor advanced process challenges.”


Cadence Vice President Paul Cunningham said in an interview with our newspaper held at Lotte World Hotel in Songpa-gu on the 5th that Cadence, as a computing software powerhouse including AI-based EDA, will achieve production optimization in all areas including design, packaging, and verification of advanced nodes.

The scale of integrated circuit design continues to expand and become more refined, and 2.5D and 3D packaging are expanding. In particular, 3D packaging technology has emerged as an alternative to maximize the performance of stacking or bundling semiconductors as semiconductor microfabrication approaches its limits.

3D IC is a technology that stacks and connects multiple layers of ICs based on TSV (through silicon via) to operate as a single device. It is composed of an integrated circuit and provides improved performance, low power consumption, and a small form factor, so demand is increasing in the mobile AP, data center, HPC, and automotive fields.

While the existing SoC (System on Chip) is a method of integrating multiple functions into a single chip, 3D IC is a method of integrating multiple dies by vertically stacking and connecting them. In order to satisfy the complexity of the manufacturing process and optimize costs, EDA (Electronic Design Automation) for 3D IC design is essential.

Cadence, a global semiconductor EDA tool company, provides total SW solutions used in semiconductor design, packaging, and verification. Cadence's AI-based EDA tool supports advanced nodes and 3D to optimize processes from semiconductor design to manufacturing, packaging, and verification.

Vice President Paul Cunningham said, “As we move to advanced nodes, the architecture changes, EDA tools become more complex to meet semiconductor yields, and verification based on organic connections becomes more difficult.” He added, “3D IC technology will be applied as standard, especially in the 2nm process.”

For analog, embedded, and RF chips, we will proceed in the same way as before, but when developing large chips, it is explained that development based on multi-die chips is effective in reducing costs.

Cadence emphasizes building an ecosystem through collaboration between EDA software, foundry companies, fabless, and memory. Vice President Paul Cunningham said that this year, in response to the demand for process miniaturization and the trend toward 3D packaging in various industries, they are focusing on collaboration with Samsung Foundry, TSMC, and Intel Foundry.

Recently, they also joined hands to provide an integrated design environment that shortens the time when creating complex 3D-IC designs based on the 'Integrity 3D-IC' platform combined with Samsung Foundry's latest technology.

On this day, Vice President Paul Cunningham emphasized the importance of computing software beyond EDA. “Just as Nvidia supports GPU computing with CUDA software technology, the software stack will become a key consideration in chip design,” he predicted.

Accordingly, Cadence plans to look beyond its current EDA and invest in design and simulation over the next 30 years by expanding its computing software products.

This is applied to cutting-edge industries such as aviation, automotive, molecular simulation, data centers, and digital twins. For example, instead of the existing process of creating a physical prototype for automobile performance testing, it is expected that simulations will be conducted and costs will be reduced by applying computing software algorithms to model.

“Our approach, starting at the design stage and expanding to modules and systems, will allow us to cover areas that other companies cannot, helping to increase productivity by saving time and money,” added Vice President Paul Cunningham.

On that day, Vice President Paul Cunningham added that the industry’s recent response to AI solutions such as Celebrus and Vericium has also been positive. “AI/ML applications and the cloud are in the early stages of the industry, but they are essential for performing sophisticated tasks as tools for automation and productivity enhancement, and we will continue to pay close attention to them,” he said.

To this end, Cadence has been actively investing in domestic and international R&D, and has also expressed confidence in supporting next-generation semiconductor design technology.