More companies are concluding that software running on standard Intel-style microprocessors is not the best solution for all problems. Chip design teams are no longer working just for traditional chip companies, said Pierre Lamond, a 90-year-old venture capitalist who joined the chip industry in 1957. Little of that activity would be possible, Mr. Keller and others said, without advances in design software by Synopsys and its biggest rival, Cadence Design Systems. Chip design software gained popularity in the 1980s to streamline tasks that engineers once carried out with pencils and drafting tables, painstakingly drawing clusters of transistors and other components on chips. In response, he said, some companies are using Synopsys tools to design entire systems and bundles of smaller chips that work like a single processor.

Source: International New York Times May 07, 2021 09:00 UTC