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TAIPEI, Nov. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

Is "designing AI chips with AI" feasible?

This article is based on an interview undertaken by FusionMedium's  technology

online media, TechOrange, and published with permission:

Semiconductor chips have become the core for driving innovation in the edge

computing of tomorrow. Smartphones were the world's first stage of entry into

the Era of Intelligence. As reliance on electronic products continues to grow,

how to design higher performing and cost-effective chips, and to do so in a

shorter time, has become a key challenge for IC designers.

Synopsys is an S&P 500 company and has a long history of being a global leader

in IC electronic design automation (EDA) and IC interface IP. The company is

dedicated to providing the best "Silicon to Software" solutions.

EDA has greatly increased the speed at which technology evolves, while the

number of transistors deployed in a chip has risen sharply

With the simple and rapid dissemination of knowledge, human technology has

evolved so much that the words that used to be printed by the Gutenberg

printing press have now become digital zeros and ones, logical gates, and tools

to miniaturize these technologies in tiny silicon chips, and that tool is

Electronic Design Automation (EDA).

The emergence of EDA has greatly increased the speed at which technology is

developed. Li pointed out that semiconductor technology became a key player in

all kinds of electronic devices and systems, although IC circuits were still

designed manually at that time.

Li recalled the early 1990s when there were only 12 million transistors in

telephone chipsets and engineers were still drawing circuits by hand, taking a

year and a half to complete the design of a single chip. "The number of

transistors in cell phone chips on the market today runs between 1.2 billion

and 2 billion, and each transistor circuit has to be connected correctly for

the phone to work, which is virtually impossible were the old design method

were still in use. EDA makes this possible. "

EDA design involves three processes to meet the needs for higher performance,

lower cost and faster time-to-market

The first step of EDA is to describe the circuit, and the second step is to

build a circuit model, simulate operation, analyze feasibility, optimize

performance, and finally reach automation.

This process is similar to the current AI machine learning algorithm, which

also collects a large amount of data, simulates it into a neural-like network,

and then trains the model so that the system can make inferences and predict

behavior, and design corresponding actions.

Li continued his description, "AI technology can be applied to EDA in every

aspect of IC design, from specification, functional and circuit design, to

real-world verification, to IC production and testing, in a way that human

beings cannot. The key indicator of IC design is PPA (Power, Performance,

Area), which means less power, higher performance and more transistors packed

into the same geometry.

In addition to PPA, various considerations such as information security and

stability, among others, must now be included, which makes IC design more and

more complex.

The era of "designing AI chips with AI" is coming

As a global EDA leader, Synopsys launched an AI-enabled EDA platform in 2020

and joined Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to

establish the AI Chip Design Lab. The firm then launched the public AI

system-on-chip (SoC), to assist IC designers in shortening the development

timeline. "If we continued to use the old design method, it would take 100

engineers more than three years to complete the design of an AI accelerator for

social networking sites. After leveraging the AI SoC, the Taiwan start-up team

needed only 30 engineers and completed the product design within a year and a

half."

The AI on Chip Industry Cooperation Strategic Alliance established by the Smart

Electronics Industry Promotion Office (SIPO) of the Industrial Development

Bureau, connects the upstream and downstream supply chains of global industries

and assists semiconductor, AI, and IoT manufacturers in establishing

international partnerships, giving Taiwan's manufacturers an opportunity to

explore innovative business opportunities and enhance international

competitiveness.

Lastly, Li said that the global industry relies more and more heavily on ICs as

we enter the Era of Intelligence. Statistics show that future market demand for

IC design engineers will be 1000 times higher than it is now. To meet this

demand, AI is imperative. The era of designing AI chips with AI has come and IC

designers must ready themselves for this trend in order to remain competitive

in the industrial environment of tomorrow."

Media Contact

Shine Chiu

shine@fusionmedium.com

+886 919-031-282

SOURCE: Fusionmedium