Liu Weiping of HuaDa JiuTian: The road to breakthrough for domestic EDA
Latest update time：2021-09-04 17:35
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On August 4, 2019, the Second China Graduate Student Innovation "Chip" Competition Summit Forum was held in Hangzhou. Liu Weiping, Chairman of HuaDa Empathy, a Chinese EDA tool provider, attended the forum and delivered a report entitled "The Road to Breakthrough for Domestic EDA".
Chairman Liu first expressed that he was very happy to have the opportunity to share the development of domestic EDA at the Summit Forum of the Innovation "Core" Competition. The report is divided into three aspects: the first is the overall situation analysis of the industry; the second is the status and gap of domestic EDA; and the third is to talk about some views on the future.
Overall Industry Situation
As we all know, the integrated circuit industry chain has three links - design, manufacturing, packaging and testing - if these three links are done well, the integrated circuit can be done well.
But if we look at the support behind these three links, there are three more basic things, namely equipment, materials and EDA tools. They are more basic and more strategically important links in the integrated circuit industry.
Regarding the strategic importance of EDA tools, let's first look at several recent events. First, when Huawei, ZTE and other companies were sanctioned by the United States, EDA tools became a very important tool. Second, the Electronic Renaissance Initiative launched by the United States in 2017 included advanced EDA technology research as one of the first projects to be supported. EDA is the lifeblood of the development of the integrated circuit industry. Without EDA, the foundation is not solid.
From the perspective of the global EDA industry, the global EDA market was about 6.4 billion US dollars in 2018, and the six US EDA companies accounted for 95% of the global market and industry space, making them the strongest in the EDA field. Synopsys, Cadence Design Systems, and Mentor Graphics, three major US companies, have complete and overall superior full-process products, and have absolute advantages in some fields. Their revenues exceed 1 billion US dollars each, and they account for about 80% of the global market in total; ANSYS, PDF SOLUTIONS, SILVACO of the United States and HuaDa JiuTian of China have full-process bases in specific fields, leading in local technology, and they account for about 15% of the global market in total; in addition, there are more than 50 small EDA companies that make tools.
In 2018, domestic EDA sales were approximately US$500 million (about RMB 3.3 billion), accounting for about 8% of the global market, while domestic EDA tool sales were RMB 340 million, accounting for 10% of the domestic EDA market. It can be seen that China's EDA tools mainly come from the United States. If there is competition between China and the United States, or a trade war, EDA will always be a fatal problem. If we don't solve EDA, we will definitely be controlled by the United States. This is different from other fields. Other areas such as equipment and materials can also be done in other regions outside the United States, but EDA is only in the United States.
At present, there are about ten EDA companies in China, and many people are working hard on related work. But they are all very small. Even HuaDa JiuTian, which is known as the strongest and largest, has only 360 to 70 formal employees, including other implementation personnel, there are only more than 400 people. It is hoped that the number will be expanded to 500 by the end of this year, and will continue to expand in the future.
According to statistics, there are about 600 to 700 local EDA practitioners. Excluding those in marketing and technical support, there are probably only 500 people actually engaged in EDA research and development, so there is a particular shortage of talent in the domestic EDA field. The Graduate Student Innovation "Core" Competition has trained a lot of chip design talents for the integrated circuit industry, and we also hope to have the opportunity to train more talents in EDA.
To summarize the basic characteristics of the EDA industry, first, it is an oligopoly, and the technical difficulty is relatively high. Basically, the first place takes the profit, the second place breaks even, and the third place loses money. The technology is similar. If you can't make the top two in EDA, you basically have no chance. You must have high technology to meet the development needs of chip products. Second, the investment cycle of the EDA industry is relatively long and the effect is slow. Algorithm-intensive large-scale software systems require long-term technical accumulation; EDA has a long R&D cycle and a long industrialization cycle, which requires continuous capital investment. Today everyone is talking about persistence, and the EDA field needs more persistence. Basically, it takes about 6 years to develop an EDA tool to truly make a product that is accepted by the market and can be applied in the market. Third, it is necessary to establish an industrial ecosystem and get full support from the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. EDA is the link and bridge between manufacturing and design, which means that it needs the support of manufacturing and design. Fourth, talent. The development of the EDA industry is more dependent on talent. At present, there is a shortage of talent in the domestic EDA field, including basic talent and high-end talent. Fifth, the development of the EDA industry requires mergers and acquisitions. The three giants in the EDA field have all grown through mergers and acquisitions. There are currently a dozen EDA companies in China and dozens of large and small EDA companies abroad. If we work together, we may be able to expand our products more quickly.
Current situation and gap
Chairman Liu Weiping said that domestic EDA has been exploring and advancing amidst ups and downs for a long time. Although the scale of EDA is relatively small at present, there is a chance to continue to move forward and become bigger and stronger.
HuaDa JiuTian has four solutions in EDA: the first is the full-process EDA platform for analog IC design. We are the first in the world to use GPU acceleration technology to implement SPICE circuit simulation, and we are still the only one in the world. The second is the digital SoC design optimization EDA system. The third is the wafer manufacturing dedicated tools and services. The fourth is the flat panel display design EDA system. In addition to the four solutions, there are also IPs around interfaces.
The company serves nearly 300 customers worldwide, including the top ten domestic design companies, the top 20 global semiconductor companies, major global wafer foundries, and domestic and foreign panel companies.
Although we have made some achievements, we must also see our gaps. In fact, there are three aspects of the gap. First, there is a lack of core tool modules for digital chip design, which cannot support the full process design of digital chips. Second, there is insufficient support for advanced processes. Except for two or three individual tools that can support 14 nanometers, 7 nanometers, and 5 nanometers, many other tools cannot do so. Third, there is a lack of manufacturing and packaging and testing EDA systems, which cannot support the application needs of chip packaging and testing manufacturers.
There are two reasons for the gap. One is the lack of attention, whether it is talent or funding. First of all, talent, Synopsys has more than 7,000 EDA R&D personnel, and there are only 600 people in my country engaged in domestic EDA R&D. Not to mention the funds. Synopsys invested more than 1 billion US dollars in R&D in 2018, about 7 billion yuan, while HuaDa JiuTian invested only 1 billion yuan in ten years. Another is the poor industrial ecological environment. Design companies are not active in using domestic EDA tools, and the level of practical application of tools is slowly improving. Moreover, there is insufficient collaboration between upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain, especially the lack of strategic cooperation.
future plan
The biggest problem facing our industry now is that the tool products are incomplete, and the supporting technology is not advanced enough. The next development goal is to make the tool products complete, and to upgrade the technology and solve the problem of supporting advanced processes. This requires the whole industry to work together to make the products complete and good.
To do all things well with EDA tools, support and investment from all aspects are needed. First, the government should increase support and be prepared for long-term and sustained large investments; second, enterprises should increase investment, not just for the purpose of profit, but to solve the "bottleneck" problem as the current goal; third, attract social capital participation, strengthen financial strength, effectively grasp the opportunity of mergers and acquisitions, and achieve rapid growth and strength.
*Disclaimer: This article is originally written by the author. The content of the article is the author's personal opinion. Semiconductor Industry Observer reprints it only to convey a different point of view. It does not mean that Semiconductor Industry Observer agrees or supports this point of view. If you have any objections, please contact Semiconductor Industry Observer.
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