A Not-for-Profit R&D Joint Venture
Suppliers and users who innovate on trusted standards and share solutions that lower development costs and increase design productivity.
The home for:
Timely technical presentations highlighting Si2 OpenAccess, the industry’s leading API for IC design.-- Details in Si2 News
Si2 provides a unique, collaborative environment and access to shared solutions for users and suppliers from corporations, institutions and academia. Si2 solutions are co-developed in a way that permits innovation while guaranteeing compatibility with trusted standards. Some members have leadership roles and participate broadly across Si2. Some members focus on specific areas of interest. Others join to primarily gain access to Si2 solutions. All are welcome.
Each Si2 program comes with support from Si2’s staff of engineers and leaders who help member companies implement and improve the standards and solutions that they define. This shortens learning cycles and enables faster co-development while ensuring compatibility.
Downloading and installing updated industry-trusted solutions that ensure compatibility enables EDA tool suppliers to lower development costs and deploy integrated solutions in less time.
Si2 coalitions and working groups produce a complete set of technology and other intellectual property (“IP”) in addition to and in support of standards specifications. This includes, but is not limited to, the development of proof-of-concept demonstrations, compliance suites, and reference implementations.
Si2 staff help member companies implement the solutions and complete proof-of-concepts in their local design environments so they can validate functionality using proprietary design collateral.
Access to source code during co-development and re-distribution rights for binary code in support of their applications allows EDA tool developers and design enablement teams to build on a solid foundation and focus their internal development on adding differentiable value in their products or internally developed design tools.
Si2 solutions primarily focus increasing EDA tool interoperability. Increased EDA tool interoperability through the co-development and use of new standards and APIs lowers the barrier to entry for new entrants and spurs innovation across the industry.
Access to solutions that increase interoperability and have been vetted by the Si2 community makes it easier for design enablement teams to plug in different EDA tools, when needed, for a critical design block to achieve the best possible result.
Using common data formats, models, utilities, and collateral that have been vetted by the Si2 community reduces the need to re-format or translate data when tools or IP from multiple suppliers are used. This simplifies design flows, reduces the amount of re-work, and shortens design loops.
Reducing the amount of time a design engineer wastes on making design flows work also allows them to spend more time on improving the design itself.
Si2 engineers help facilitate, co-develop, QA, release and maintain Si2 solutions. This removes that burden from the members and enables them to focus on continuous innovation and improvement.
Since all of the work is facilitated by Si2 and uses a common development infrastructure the resulting solutions can be verified to be compatible with previous releases and the existing standards while keeping in sync with the latest bug fixes.
Si2 coalitions, special interest groups and Openstandards working groups are where engineers from EDA, design, and foundry companies come together. Members use these Si2 facilitated programs to increase their knowledge of the industry and influence their peers when collaboration is needed.
Participation in Si2 programs also allow individual engineers from member companies to increase their knowledge in emerging areas of interest by jointly exploring, socializing, and learning from other experienced engineering leaders.
Si2 hosts selected standards and member contributed solutions for free public download as part of our mission to offer standards, technology, and services to all interested organizations and individuals at a fair and reasonable cost. These include the latest released version of the Library Exchange Format and Design Exchange Format (LEF/DEF) with its API Format Specification Reference Documentation, the latest public releases of CMC models, and other member or Si2 contributions.
There are roughly 65 corporate members of Si2. Our members drive the Si2 roadmap, codevelop and enhance solutions and share in the results. One such member is Keysight EDA. Keysight’s EDA industry heritage goes back more than 40 years, with a history of technical innovation, customer support, training, and industry leadership. They play a prominent role in the semiconductor industry’s success with new technologies such as AI/ML, cloud-based design, heterogeneous integration and 3D IC design, and enterprise lifecycle management. They understand EDA’s importance and value in the electronic product development process and bring a broad perspective to the Si2 by serving the interests of EEs and designers as well as those of test, measurement, and manufacturing engineers.
