Despite the booming semiconductor industry, the number of new EDA startups is smaller than one would expect. Is the EDA industry’s status quo hindering innovation? Is venture capital overlooking EDA? We asked these and other questions to industry veterans (Lucio Lanza, Wally Rhines, Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli) and startuppers (Chouki Aktouf, Keshav Amla)
“EDA, where electronics begins”: this was the title of a video produced in 2002 by the EDA Consortium (now Electronic System Design Alliance). The motto literally holds true today, in the so-called “semiconductor renaissance” era – an expression alluding not only to record high chip revenues and fab investments, but also to the dozens of startups developing new processing architectures for deep learning acceleration. In contrast, the number of new EDA startups seems to be smaller than one would expect. Undoubtedly, the current boom of the semiconductor industry is also benefitting the big EDA vendors and the EDA industry as a whole; just see the latest ESDA figures. Still, the relatively small number of EDA startups may raise some concerns, as these nascent companies are usually considered a key indicator of the liveliness and innovation capabilities of hi-tech industries. To shed some light on this matter, EDACafe talked to industry veterans and startuppers, getting interesting answers.
