Announcement
French but Geneva-based chip maker STMicroelectronics and US chip design software developer Synopsys said STMicro was the first to use AI software running in Microsoft Corp’s cloud to design a working chip.
According to STMicro, the result will help solve the growing challenge of getting more and more complex projects ready for customers in a reasonable timeframe. The company is one of those using artificial intelligence to help design chips, which means translating a complex circuit architecture into the blueprints needed to produce billions of transistors on a small piece of silicon, Reuters reports.
Synopsys, the maker of the AI software used by STMicro, said on Tuesday that it has been used to develop 100 different chips from Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and others since its release in 2020.
The precise placement of billions of transistors on a chip greatly affects its final performance. Engineers use software like Synopsys to figure out where to place them, experimenting with several possible designs over several rounds to find the best one.
The problem in recent years is that chips have become much more complex, meaning that finding the right design requires more and more experimentation. But business deadlines haven’t gotten any longer: customers keep wanting new chips year after year.
To meet deadlines, the AI system is tasked with helping engineers filter out failed design attempts and identify those that will succeed. “We have limited time. Limiting the size of the experiments we do to a practical number is a realistic goal,” said Indawong Wongsawadee, who oversees design tools in one of the STMicro teams.
Cloud computing also helps reduce time pressure. Shankar Krishnamurthy, general manager of Synopsys’ design automation group, said the company’s AI engine delivers better results faster when supported by more computing power. Cloud providers such as Microsoft offer the ability to rent massive amounts of computing power in a short amount of time.
“In most engineering environments, people say, “I have this much compute (power). I need results for this time. Give me the best result,” said Krishnamurti.
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