Author: Ling Lin, Global Vice President and General Manager of Siemens EDA in China
In 2022, rising inflation, external frictions, weak demand in the terminal market, and repeated epidemics, all kinds of uncertainties pushed the global semiconductor market into an adjustment cycle. Facing the year 2023, the predictions given by many well-known analysts have a pessimistic background. However, as a cyclical industry, as the basis of all industries, semiconductor adjustment is the normal state, and the turning point is both the starting point and the potential. We see that Moore‘s Law and post-Moore‘s technology have made important progress in 2022, and continuous innovation will build our ability and resilience to cope with changes. In 2023, we believe that the following industry trends are worthy of attention:
Trend 1 - More system companies begin to vertically integrate and design IC
Ten years ago, system companies accounted for about 1% of the IC OEM capacity. Now, this proportion has exceeded 20%. More and more system companies begin to develop their own IC. Why?
First of all, the system value is largely reflected in the semiconductor level. The system company is eager for more value growth and will be more inclined to design its own IC.
Secondly, the system value can be better differentiated through self-developed IC. Today‘s electronic systems are very intelligent, and how to apply these embedded intelligence and optimize devices to achieve this intelligence is the key to achieving product differentiation. Taking Apple as an example, many years ago, Apple decided to take the lead in adopting 64-bit computing, which not only enabled them to have an additional 64-bit address space, but also gained more efficient and lower power consumption memory access capabilities, making their devices run faster and have longer battery life than competitors‘ products.
At present, many companies are using AI and machine learning (AI/ML) technology to improve the degree of system differentiation, and more and more AI is integrated into edge devices. At the same time, some leading companies have also built their own optimized AI accelerator to achieve higher differentiation and make their own advantages more prominent.
Trend 2 - Integration of electronics, machinery and software in integrated digital twins
Whether for automatic driving, 5G, or "chip to city" applications, knowing the performance of the system in real input and output environment in advance will bring greater flexibility. In terms of automatic driving, the IC industry is faced with two major obstacles, one is power consumption, and the other is to determine how much calculation the system needs to handle in a complex real environment. These challenges have brought a high demand for digital twins, which can simulate the operation of electromechanical systems in real environments. In a completely autonomous environment, the electromechanical system commanded by software needs to run in a larger system network, which requires that it be tested in detail in the virtual world to ensure that it can be tested and deployed in reality after passing the test.
Trend 3 - 3D IC gradually becomes the mainstream, and chiplets further rises
At present, 3D IC design has shown enough persuasiveness to the industry: at the IC level, it enables chip companies to develop smaller bare chips, and at the same time, it can improve the production of good bare chips for each wafer; At the system level, 3D IC enables companies to further miniaturize and reduce BOM costs. At the same time, 3D IC enables the design team to place or stack different types of ICs - SoC, analog IC and memory IC, to achieve higher system performance and functions than traditional PCB and even SoC configurations.
3D IC needs to adopt system architecture thinking. It not only needs to carry out system-level planning among multiple substrates, but also needs to use an integrated solution to carry out IC, packaging and PCB-level design, analysis and testing. These should be carried out at each level of the design stage (IC, intermediate layer, packaging and PCB), and also from the overall level. Ideally, 3D IC needs a solution to consider mechanical stress and supply chain, and to track and manage all these data uniformly. Therefore, partners who can provide comprehensive 3D IC solutions, including IC, intermediate layer, PCB design and packaging, analysis/testing, machinery, supply chain, etc., will have more advantages.
With 3D IC becoming increasingly mainstream, new industry standards for "chiplet" are also emerging. In 2022, UCIE and other standards organizations announced the establishment of an ecosystem to turn the plug and play capabilities of small chips into reality. In this way, EDA companies need to actively participate in these efforts to ensure that the IC tool suite helps to develop standards-compliant and pluggable chiplets, and that larger 3D IC solutions can also do this. Only by formulating formal standards for chiplet faster and making it a booming new industry can we lead a new wave of new system innovation driven by 3D IC integration.
Trend 4 - AI/ML will be more widely used
AI/ML technology is undoubtedly a "fast track" for innovation, whether it is to develop new products or to achieve smaller repairs. AI has been applied in many industry scenarios today. For example, AI/ML is used to repair defects in tools. These defects are not related to specific OEM process rules in essence. We can predict that AI/ML will continue to be widely used in 2023 and become a regular component of EDA tools. The EDA industry has always placed high hopes on AI/ML. It should not only be able to better perform rapid analysis and explore design possibilities faster, but also become a tool that can actually support design and development. This is also the direction that all EDA manufacturers are striving for.
In the face of market fluctuations and structural differentiation of supply and demand, enterprises with strategic vision are on the one hand honing their "internal forces", and on the other hand promoting the production capacity layout to a longer industrial cycle. Adhering to the foundation of innovation and following the latest technology will be the best way for us to face new challenges, new opportunities and new markets.
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