A key discussion earlier this year at the Hot Chips conference was using AI for semiconductor chip development. Some felt that AI should be integrated into the electronic design automation (EDA) tools, while others felt it might be better to have AI agents that use the standard tools. However, all agreed that there was still a bit of distrust for using AI to design critical electronic system functions today . Even the leading semiconductor and electronic systems companies are still limiting the use of AI in design. Now Siemens is proposing a third, hybrid option – a unified user interface (UI) with automated AI functions built into the UI to improve productivity.
As semiconductors and electronic systems have increased in cost and complexity over the past fifty years, EDA tools have become critical to ensure the functionality and manufacturability of solutions before entering the manufacturing phase to reduce costly re-design cycles. Everything from the chips to the printed circuit boards to the assembled systems relies on EDA tools to simulate, analyze, and design solutions. However, many of these tools have been designed with a specific function in mind and by different groups or companies. There are three primary semiconductor EDA vendors in the market today: Cadence, Siemens EDA, and Synopsys. These three have acquired many other companies to create their EDA product portfolios. Synopsys is currently acquiring Ansys, and Siemens acquired Mentor Graphics in 2017, in an effort to combine semiconductor EDA tools with multiphysics solutions, after Mentor Graphics had acquired fifteen companies. The acquisitions have occasionally resulted in tools that don’t have the same user interface, even though they are designed to share data. This increases learning curves, extends design cycles, and reduces productivity even when using tools from the same vendor.
With the latest release of a series of tools for Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design and analysis, Siemens is taking the first steps to enhance tool consistency with a common UI. This includes the latest versions of Xpedition, Hyperlynx, and PADS Professional. Without going into detail on these very complex tools, Xpedition is used for PCB design, verification and manufacturing, Hyperlynx analyzes and simulates PCBs, and PADS Professional is a comprehensive EDA suite for small teams for designing, analyzing, and manufacturing complete electronic systems. The common UI is more intuitive to the user while improving the interconnectivity and data security between the tools and offering collaboration through the cloud.
Within the new UI, Siemens integrated AI to perform common functions and to provide engineering support, including process prediction, in-tool product support assistant, natural language datasheet query, support center search, and optimized simulation. It’s important to note that this is traditional AI, not generative AI. So, the results are based on determined outcomes, not predictive inference. This eliminates one of the key concerns about using AI in the design of electronic system while still improving engineering productivity and reducing the time-to-market. Siemens also noted that it should helped overcome, at least partially, another critical issue for the electronics industry, the lack of skilled labor at a time when more skilled talent is required to meet the demands of the AI era.
The new releases also feature enhanced integration with the Siemens Teamcenter product lifecycle management system and NX mechanical design, engineering, and manufacturing software suite. More importantly, the announcements point to how Siemens is creating consistency across its tools, and potentially those of other vendors, and using AI to improve functionality and efficiency. While there are still concerns about AI, especially generative AI, in electronic system design, the Siemens approach proves that there are clear benefits from using AI, as well as improving something as foundational as the user interface. Hopefully, this will start a trend across all EDA tool manufacturers to bring these benefits to bear in their solutions.
