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In the global semiconductor field, the influence of the United States is very large. From semiconductor equipment to industrial software, etc., they have mastered the core technology and have a large number of patents. Therefore, the United States arbitrarily changes the chip rules according to its own wishes.
The United States moved again, starting on August 15, when new restrictions began to be implemented, which involved EDA software and related to 3nm chip design. What does this mean? How important is the EDA software that the U.S. restricts this time?
The United States took a shot at EDA
The manufacturing process of a chip is very complex and requires the mobilization of the power of the global industrial chain. Among them, chip design as the source of the beginning, the importance of self-evident.
But designing a chip is not so simple, ordinary architectural engineering design may only need to draw graphics in CAD, and chip design needs to rise several exponential difficulties. And without professional EDA tools, it is impossible to complete complex chip design work.
EDA here refers to chip design automation, which is the abbreviation of Electronic Design Automation. Anyone who knows it knows that EDA is an important process to help chip designers complete a series of algorithms, layout layout, performance tests, and so on.
At the moment when the chip industry is hot, most of the domestic semiconductor companies have entered the field of chip design and become professional IC chip design manufacturers.
The world's famous chip design companies include Qualcomm, Apple, MediaTek, Huawei HiSilicon and so on. These companies, without exception, need to use EDA, and the source of EDA software is inseparable from American companies.
Synopsys, Cadence, and Mentor Graphics are three U.S. companies known as the EDA Big Three and hold more than 80 percent of the global EDA market share. The market share in the domestic market is as high as 85%. However, if the first-line manufacturers do not use the EDA products of these three companies, it is difficult to design industry-leading chips.
It can be seen that the United States has a lot of say in the field of EDA.
This time, in addition to restricting the shipment of semiconductor equipment, the United States has taken a shot at EDA software.
According to the news from the United States, since August 15, the export control of EDA software required for GAAFET integrated circuits has also involved gallium oxide, diamond and pressure gain combustion technology.
The United States has included a total of four technologies in the export control program, each of which is a cutting-edge technology. For example, the EDA software used by GAAFET, which is different from the EDA generally used for FinFET architecture technology, GAAFET is applied to chip architectures of 3nm and below, so this part of the EDA software will be more professional and advanced.
The United States' shot at this part of the EDA means that it wants to control from the source of the chip industry. Its importance is self-evident, after all, the chip design industry itself is less difficult than chip manufacturing, and it is easy to break through some cutting-edge technologies and prepare for the future.
Gallium oxide, diamond belongs to the fourth generation of semiconductor materials, the current use of gallium nitride in the industry, silicon carbide belongs to the third generation of semiconductor materials. Another pressure gain combustion technology is used in gas turbine engines for aerospace.
Most of these technologies are related to semiconductors. EDA, in particular, goes straight to the bottom of the chip industry. If even the chip cannot be designed, the subsequent steps will be difficult to continue.
The timing of domestic EDA
The United States to EDA to launch a move in fact, there are already signs, after the United States launched an investigation into Synopsys Technology, the company is suspected of providing technology to foreign companies, and later Synopsys Technology executives also confirmed the situation of being investigated, as for the outcome, there is no news so far.
Since the United States can investigate its own companies, it shows that the attention to EDA technology is very high, and it will not be easily provided to specific companies.
This time, the United States has set its sights on the field of 3nm chip design, and the restricted EDA software can no longer provide services to foreign companies, of course, the technical architecture outside of 3nm has not been affected.
Under this action of the United States, it is likely to create another situation. That's what has accelerated the rise of other EDA software companies. In China, in fact, there are not no own EDA manufacturers, such as BGI Nine Days, Introduction Electronics, Core Vision, etc. are well-known domestic EDA manufacturers.
Among them, BGI Nine Days mastered the fully automated EDA platform and has industry-leading technology in some fields. As of August 15, the company's market capitalization was 66.130 billion yuan. It is the object of more attention in the semiconductor market.
The rest of the domestic EDA manufacturers, some have also completed the listing, and some are still on the road to optimizing technology. If the United States insists on going its own way and drifts away on the wrong road, then the time for domestic EDA may come.
Just like Google stopped licensing GMS services to Huawei and excluded Huawei from subsequent version updates of the Android system. As a result, Huawei launched the self-developed Hongmeng system, and today Hongmeng has exceeded 300 million devices, and the open source Hongmeng has also ushered in the milestone achievement of 14 industry distributions.
summary
Huawei has proved that in the field of software, it will not be completely decided by US companies, and it will develop it itself without an operating system, develop its own system, and build its own ecology. EDA is the same, facing the future to forge a path of its own.
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