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We Need Your Insights on How to Improve the IC Design Ecosystem

Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2) has launched a comprehensive, international survey to identify and address ways to streamline and improve the IC design ecosystem.

Survey results will be announced in a DAC 2018 white paper, whose contents will present an industry consensus on specific ways the industry can manage the rising costs of more complex designs and smaller geometries.

You can access the survey and share your insights here. It will take about 20 minutes to complete.

Si2 extends its thanks to the Electronic System Design Alliance for its support of this survey.

Thanks for sharing your expertise!

Complete the survey today! Amazon gift cards will be sent to the first 50 respondents.

Si2 Special Interest Groups—Forums for Collaborative Problem Solving

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By Ted Paone
Si2 Interoperability Standards Architect

It is a new year but those design issues you could not fix last year are still robbing your company’s productivity. The problems didn’t stop at the beginning of this year, and there are less time and limited staff to find the solutions.  Well, you are not the only one. In my many years as a corporate application engineer for a large EDA company, I’ve heard the same stories told again and again, with slight variations and a different cast of characters. If I could only get them in the same room, we could discuss the insights to solve these common problems, but that could be collusion with all its consequences.

In 2017, you are no longer alone. The Special Interest Groups (SIG) set up under the anti-trust protection of Si2 allow you to solve design problems with other companies in the industry, sharing hundreds of years of knowledge of designers to address common issues. Si2, as a research and development joint venture, provides an opportunity to collaborate with like-minded companies to identify, document and even solve problems in the electronics/photonics design fields.

Within the Si2 structure, SIGs can be formed to address general or specific design topics such as Silicon Photonic/Electronic Co-Design, Process Design Kit Generation or Design Migration. The SIGs are the incubator for ideas within the Si2 structure. The SIG can create industry surveys to find and prioritize the issues and work with other industry groups to develop roadmaps. Members can jointly write white papers and present at conferences. Using the Si2 infrastructure, the SIG can spawn projects including prototyping implementations, developing standards and creating training and documentation.

sig-chart-copyA special interest group gathers the information and incubates the ideas. The multiple SIGs share their expertise. These ideas feed additional groups through papers, standards, workshops and project and prototype requirements. Project implementation is performed by members themselves or through the Si2 Working Groups under OpenStandards with the support of the working group members. The working groups spring up to complete a project, and the results are available to working group members. Some of the projects directly affect production design standards coalitions, OpenAccess and the Compact Model Coalition. Graduate and undergraduate students participate in development under the mentorship of the SIG and working group members to create the standards and implementations and supporting information. All this is done under the protection of Si2.

Si2 primary mission is identifying common problems and providing paths to solutions. Starting with the Special Interest Groups, the Si2 structure efficiently extends the industry’s resources, enabling collaborative development while protecting proprietary IP. What can we help each other with today?

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Si2 is a research and development joint venture that provides collaborative research and development leading to accelerated interoperability solutions and standards. As defined by the National Cooperative Research and Production Act of 1993, activities conducted under the auspices and guidance of Si2 receive a large measure of protection against federal anti-trust laws.