European company executives and analysts got together to discuss old continent’s strengths and weaknesses, aiming to make the most of the subsidies that the EU Chips Act will provide to the European semiconductor ecosystem

Necessary but not sufficient: this is how the EU Chips Act – the subsidy plan recently passed by the European Union to support Europe’s semiconductor industry – is perceived by many of the company executives and analysts convened in Vienna on February 15th and 16th for the 2023 edition of the annual SEMI European Industry Strategy Symposium. Organized by SEMI Europe – regional office of the global industry association representing the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, the event attracted over two hundred attendees and offered valuable insights on a number of themes that are expected to impact not just the old continent, but also its geopolitical and technological partners in America and Asia. The two-day symposium saw the participation of over thirty speakers and offered three panel discussions.

Credit: SEMI Europe

In this article we will briefly summarize some of the symposium content – starting with the welcome remarks from Laith Altimime, President of SEMI Europe. Altimine outlined SEMI Europe’s agenda to make the European Chips Act a success: focus across the whole manufacturing ecosystem (materials, chemicals, gases, design, equipment, manufacturing and RTOs) to support supply chain resilience and industry growth; pursue stakeholders’ collaboration to achieve industry sustainability goals, considering that the industry has the urgent need of introducing smart and green manufacturing solutions and pave the way to net zero; support Europe’s talent pipeline transformation with concrete funds and investments, to close the talent gap and cultivate the workforce of tomorrow; foster industry participation – through the European Semiconductor Board – to ensure expertise-based decision making and inclusive governance; leverage the European “chip diplomacy”, going forward as one on export control, investments, supply chain as well as innovation and R&D.

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A couple of ‘geopolitical’ updates. General Motors and GlobalFoundries have announced a strategic, long-term agreement establishing a dedicated capacity corridor exclusively for GM’s chip supply. Through this first-of-its-kind agreement, GlobalFoundries will manufacture for GM’s key chip suppliers at GF’s advanced semiconductor facility in upstate New York, bringing a critical process to the U.S. Thomas Caulfield, president and CEO of GlobalFoundries, said that GF will expand its production capabilities exclusively for GM’s supply chain. And the U.S. government is reportedly poised to extend restrictions to American investments that are used to finance the development of advanced technologies in China. According to the report, the executive order would most likely prohibit outright investments in some sensitive areas, like quantum computing, advanced semiconductors and certain artificial intelligence capabilities with military or surveillance applications.

STMicroelectronics and SK Hynix unveil results achieved using Synopsys DSO.ai

Synopsys’ AI-based DSO.ai design system has reached the mark of 100 commercial tape-outs. The announcement includes quotes from two important Synopsys customers, unveiling the results they obtained. STMicroelectronics, which used Synopsys DSO.ai on Microsoft Azure cloud, increased PPA exploration productivity by more than 3x, allowing fast implementation of a new Arm core, while exceeding power, performance and area goals. SK hynix cited a recent project where DSO.ai delivered a 15% cell area reduction and a 5% die shrink.

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Among the latest updates on U.S.-China tensions, the Biden administration has reportedly stopped approving licenses for U.S. companies to export most items to Huawei; and Netherlands and Japan have reportedly agreed to the U.S. request of restricting exports of chipmaking tools (from ASML, Tokyo Electron etc.) to China. Let’s now move to other news, starting with some EDA updates.

Siemens aims to accelerate verification closure

Verification productivity continues to be a hot topic for the EDA industry. Siemens has just introduced Questa Verification IQ software – a solution that leverages big data and AI to accelerate verification closure. As explained in a press release, Questa Verification IQ is tightly integrated with Siemens’ Polarion Requirements software to deliver a platform that automatically captures all data from every engine run across the life of a project, helping users manage requirements, coding, testing and release management across the design and verification process. According to Siemens, this combination provides a digital thread optimized for functional safety compliance tasks, providing a traceable solution from requirements down to verification results and implementation. Questa Verification IQ unifies coverage data from the formal and simulation engines within Siemens’ Questa platform, OneSpin software, Symphony platform for analog and mixed-signal simulation, as well as Siemens’ Veloce hardware for emulation and prototyping. The machine learning functionality in Questa Verification IQ then analyzes the data to predict patterns and holes, identify root causes, and prescribe solutions to potential issues. Questa Verification IQ is implemented in a web-based application framework.

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