Inside a Multi-$Billion IP Engine Driving IC and EDA Innovations

The semiconductor landscape is changing faster than ever. Chips now power everything from AI to advanced automotive systems. At the heart of this rapid revolution is semiconductor intellectual property (IP). In this episode, Daniel Bogdanoff sits down with John Koeter of Synopsys. They explore how pre-verified silicon blocks accelerate chip design. They also discuss the massive shift toward multi-die systems and the future role of AI in engineering. Accelerating Chip Design with Pre-Verified IP and Multi-Die Architectures As Moore's law slows down, chip designers face extreme physical challenges. Designing a complex system-on-chip (SoC) from scratch is no longer viable. Companies rely on proven IP blocks to speed up time-to-market and ensure silicon success. Today, the industry is transitioning to multi-die systems. Instead of one massive chip, designers stack multiple specialized chiplets in advanced packages. This transition introduces complex thermal and power challenges that require highly accurate modeling. System on a Chip (SoC): An integrated circuit that combines all necessary electronic circuits and parts on a single chip. Multi-Die Systems (Chiplets): An architecture where multiple specialized dies are combined in a single package to maximize performance. Model to Hardware Correlation (MHC): The practice of ensuring pre-silicon simulation models accurately predict real-world post-silicon behaviors. Managing thermal distribution is the biggest hurdle in 3D IC design. Stacking chips creates intense hotspots. These hotspots can crack or delaminate packages if unmanaged. Engineers must use advanced simulation tools to model these thermal characteristics early in the design cycle.