If not for Xu Zhijun's personal admission, many people in the outside world may still not know that Huawei has developed EDA.
After all, as a well-deserved world-class giant in the communications industry, Huawei and suppliers grab the EDA cake, which seems not very generous. But considering Huawei's development trajectory in recent years, it seems that it is not difficult to understand its current behavior. Because if Huawei wants to survive in the storm, Huawei must be deeply rooted and intertwined, constantly open up various new possibilities, and continue to improve its resistance and capabilities.
This can be seen from Huawei's blockbuster EDA business after several years of silence. Recently, Xu Zhijun, Huawei's rotating chairman, said that Huawei's chip design EDA tool team and EDA companies within the United Nations have jointly created EDA tools required for processes above 14nm, basically realizing the localization of EDA tools above 14nm, and will complete their full verification in 2023.
Xu Zhijun introduced that over the past three years, Huawei has replaced 78 software/hardware development tools in three R&D production lines, including hardware development, software development, and chip development, ensuring the continuity of R&D operations. The software development tool development team has been laying out since 2018, striving to build a complete set of tool chains for software from coding, compilation, testing, security, build, release to deployment, etc., and adopts the strategy of self-research and development with partners to solve the problem of tool continuity; With the support and help of partners, the hardware development tool development team broke through the root technology, introduced new architectures, released cloud-native schematic tools, created high-speed and high-density PCB layout tools, polished structural design 2D/3D CAD tools, and laid out hardware multidisciplinary simulation tools.
In addition, Huawei has also worked with partners to deploy EDA chip design tools, expand the independent choice of EDA tool software, seize the opportunity in the chip design market, and basically realize the localization of EDA tools above 14nm, which will be fully verified in 2023.
Ten years of cold window no one asked, once famous the world knows?
In fact, Huawei's self-developed EDA has always been an extremely confidential project within the company, and few people outside the world know about it except for domestic EDA industry chain suppliers who have a lot of contact with the project. Just like Alibaba's internal investment in the killer trump card project of "Taobao", Huawei has already begun to lay out the future step by step.
As Huawei Xu Zhijun said at the hardware and software tool pledge conference, Huawei's software development tool development team has been laying out since 2018, striving to build a complete set of tool chains from coding, compilation, testing, security, build, release, to deployment, etc., and adopt the strategy of self-research and development with partners to solve the problem of tool continuity.
Judging from the history of Huawei's technological innovation and development, Huawei's internal project self-research team has the best "combat effectiveness" in the country. From Huawei's Integrated Circuit Design Center in 1991 to HiSilicon in 2004, Huawei has led the rapid development of the national integrated circuit design industry, and its HiSilicon has ranked among the best in China's chip design field.
The same case has been successfully replicated in the field of operating systems. In 2019, Google GMS sniped at Huawei overseas, making it impossible for Huawei mobile phones to use GMS services overseas, which also completely hindered Huawei's overseas market development. However, the prescient Huawei began to plan the Harmony OS system as early as 2012 to fully prepare for various challenges that may be encountered in the future.
From its release in 2019 to the beginning of 2022, the number of users of Huawei's Hongmeng system has reached the order of 300 million, including more than 220 million mobile phone users and more than 100 million IoT devices. This once again proves the strong combat effectiveness of Huawei's internal project self-research team and Huawei's indomitable and desperate survival qualities and capabilities in the midst of bullets.
Huawei's self-developed EDA will also replicate Huawei's great success in chip design and operating systems in the future, and may even be "better than blue". This is also the result of Huawei's desperate situation under huge external pressure.
This process is not easy, but the results are fruitful, which also greatly boosts China's confidence in developing independent and controllable EDA tools, which may also be the "HiSilicon moment" in the field of chip design many years ago. As Xu Zhijun said: "The hardware development tool development team, with the support and help of partners, broke through the root technology, introduced new architectures, released cloud-native schematic tools, created high-speed and high-density PCB layout tools, polished structural design two-dimensional/three-dimensional CAD tools, and laid out hardware multidisciplinary simulation tools." The chip design EDA tool team and EDA companies in the United Nations have jointly created EDA tools required for processes above 14nm, basically realizing the localization of EDA tools above 14nm, and will complete their full verification in 2023. ”
How will it stir the semiconductor river?
Huawei's advance into the EDA tool track is undoubtedly a blessing for the domestic EDA industry chain, which is currently suffering from enemies and struggling steps. After all, in the past decade or even two, the domestic chip design industry has been using the products of the three overseas masters - Synopsys, Cadence and Siemens EDA (formerly Mentor).
But the same EDA "supply cut" incident in 2019 has made the domestic integrated circuit industry face unprecedented anxiety. After all, in the eyes of the Chinese people, EDA is generally not likely to have the problem of supply interruption, and even the industry has never considered the existence of such a software-level supply cut. Therefore, the events of 2019 are a blow to many people in the industrial chain who once believed in "good years", and China's integrated circuit industry has also been completely awakened, and has since completely embarked on the journey of domestic substitution.
This process is obviously not easy, even after years of continuous development, as well as the strong support of policies and capital, domestic EDA enterprises still face many pain points and challenges in the actual development process. After communicating and interviewing with domestic EDA companies in recent years, we found that the problems faced by domestic EDA in the actual promotion process mainly include:
1. Due to the long-term binding of the client with the overseas three major companies, the willingness of mature products to replace enterprises is not strong, after all, it involves the whole body, and it is difficult for domestic EDA brands to advance into such enterprises;
2. Most of the domestic EDA only has the ability to cover point tools and line tools, and few companies in the field of surface tools (referring to cover design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, etc.) can meet the requirements;
3. In the field of high-end chip design, there are still difficulties in replacing domestic EDA, which may also lead to many companies that want to develop high-end chip products to be less "cold" with domestic EDA tools, which further enhances the difficulty of domestic EDA wanting to develop customers in the field of high-end chip design.
As enterprises such as Huawei that have strong influence and appeal to the domestic integrated circuit industry chain enter the EDA battlefield, it will help improve the overall strength level and development speed of the domestic EDA industry.
Source: Huafu Securities Research Institute
From a macro perspective, the domestic EDA industry is expected to usher in a golden age of rapid development, and with the close cooperation between domestic EDA factories and leading supply chain enterprises, China's EDA industry is expected to achieve faster iteration with the help of "cloud" and "AI". At the same time, the leader of this chain owner, coupled with the model of huddle heating, has further strengthened the cohesion of the domestic EDA industry chain, greatly improved the anti-attack ability of China's EDA industry, and established a stronger security moat for the domestic EDA industry.
Huawei's entry into the EDA track, how does ChatGPT think?
Today, artificial intelligence has quietly entered our lives, and AI is also subtly changing our life and work patterns. As one of the hottest artificial intelligence in the world, after ChatGPT has updated version 4.0, its logical thinking ability and ability to dialogue, communication, and test taking are comparable to humans. AI like ChatGPT is also becoming one of the best assistants for our work.
So, how does ChatGPT view the entry of domestic technology giants into the EDA track? The author entered "Huawei's entry into the EDA industry, how will it affect the entire EDA industry?" And "Do you know how strong Huawei EDA is now?" Two questions, turn to ChatGPT for answers:
1. What impact does Huawei's entry into the EDA industry have on the entire EDA industry?
ChatGPT：
Huawei's entry into the EDA industry may have the following impact on the entire EDA industry:
Improve competitiveness: As a large technology company, Huawei has strong technical strength and resources, and entering the EDA market will bring more fierce competition to this market. Competition will spur innovation and technological advancement, and may lead to faster product development and higher quality products.
Driving technological progress: Huawei has leading technologies in areas such as 5G and artificial intelligence, which will promote technological progress and innovation in the EDA industry. For example, in EDA design, the use of artificial intelligence techniques can improve design efficiency and accuracy.
Enhance the status of the domestic EDA industry: With Huawei's entry into the EDA industry, China's EDA industry will be enhanced. This will promote the development and expansion of China's EDA industry, thereby improving China's international competitiveness in the semiconductor field.
Strengthening industry chain cooperation: Huawei's entry into the EDA industry will promote the cooperation and development of the EDA industry chain. Huawei can work with upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry chain, such as EDA tool providers and chip manufacturers, to improve collaboration efficiency and product quality.
Diversifying the global EDA industry: Huawei's entry into the EDA industry will bring more competitors and diversified products to the global EDA market. This will promote the globalization and diversification of the EDA industry, making the market more mature and healthy.
2. Do you know how strong Huawei EDA is now?
ChatGPT：
As a leading company in the field of telecommunications equipment, Huawei has been in the EDA (Electronic Design Automation) field for some time. However, since Huawei's EDA business is not listed, it is difficult to determine its specific strength and market performance. Here is some information about Huawei's EDA strength:
According to reports, Huawei began to lay out in the EDA field in 2017, and officially launched its own EDA tool - HiSpark (??? in 2019 ）。 Huawei says the tool surpasses existing EDA tools on the market in a number of metrics. Huawei is also increasing R&D investment in EDA to further enhance its technical strength and market share.
However, due to the lack of relevant data, it is currently impossible to determine the specific performance of Huawei EDA in the market. According to some industry insiders, Huawei's strength and market share in the EDA field may still be relatively weak.
In short, due to the lack of relevant data and information, it is impossible to determine the specific strength and market performance of Huawei EDA. However, it can be expected that Huawei's investment and R&D in the EDA field will continue to increase to enhance its competitiveness in this field.
Summary:
As the most powerful local enterprise that can drive the coordinated development and rapid growth of the industry chain, Huawei will continue to lead the domestic technology trend in the EDA field in the future. Here, I also pray that under the current situation, the domestic EDA industry should increase its efforts to heat up groups, rather than competing with each other. If domestic EDA wants to achieve faster development, it is necessary to work together and take a road that other companies have not traveled to make up for the vacancy of domestic EDA, so as to truly drive the development and growth of the entire domestic integrated circuit industry.
For ChatGPT's reply, some of the content naturally has its problems. For example, HiSpark is not an EDA product name. However, according to its reply, it can also be seen that AI also has a certain understanding of the development of the industry, and AI is rapidly entering the era of high intelligence.