The design and manufacture of today’s semiconductor chips is a complex process, requiring advanced software tools throughout the design to manufacturing flow. These tools require a team of talented engineers to develop and maintain. As the industry advances to smaller geometries and heterogeneous integration, new challenges arise requiring more research and development of the software used throughout the design ecosystem. These efforts are funded through the sale and licensing of the software.

One of the ongoing efforts of the Electronic System Design Alliance (ESD Alliance), a SEMI Technology Community, is the License Management and Anti-Piracy Committee (LMA). Part of the committee’s purpose is to help reduce the incidence of unauthorized use (piracy) of this complex software.  Unauthorized use negatively impacts both the tool vendors and customers. It deprives the software developers of revenue for their continuing efforts to develop new products that address the increasingly complex design ecosystem. Software piracy impacts the legitimate users of the software in two ways. First, the vendors may need to increase prices to be able to continue their R&D of new products and functionality. Second, it provides an unfair competitive advantage to those companies who are not paying for the software.
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