Product lifecycle management is a well-adopted methodology used in mechanical design. Until recently, it was not widely used in the semiconductor industry. That all changed when Methodics created intellectual property lifecycle management or IPLM, a design-centric mechanism for tracking and analysis of semiconductor IP and design. The result is a workspace for chip designers who often reuse existing IP.

Methodics was acquired by Perforce in 2020 and continues its quest to complete the digital thread, a traceable system from product definition and requirements all the way through semiconductor development.

Methodics founder and CEO Simon Butler is now general manager of the Methodics Business unit at Perforce, a member of the ESD Alliance, a SEMI Technology Community. Simon and I recently discussed  the Methodics by Perforce survey of semiconductor design professionals that identified challenges, trends and opportunities in 2022. What follows is a condensed version of our discussion.
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