The breakthrough of domestic chips requires not only hardware equipment such as mask aligner and etching machine, but also EDA (Electronic Design Automation Software). EDA is used in chip design, verification and manufacture, and is called “the mother of chips” and “the crown pearl of chip industry”.
“EDA is located at the top of the integrated circuit industry chain. It supports the design, manufacturing and packaging test in the middle reaches, and drives the downstream trillion-dollar electronic information industry.” Recently, Dr. Pu Bo, partner and deputy general manager of Detu Technology, said. However, in the EDA market of 100 billion, China’s technology accounts for only a single digit, while American technology accounts for an astonishing 85% in this field.
In the past 40 years, the traditional EDA design and development technology has been firmly in the hands of three leading international enterprises. Faced with the “three mountains” with long-term technology accumulation and industrial chain scale, how should China enterprises break through and break a new world in the circuit of chip industry? Tu Technology gives the answer with an advanced vision of the future.
Pu Bo said, “At present, the semiconductor process relying on the most advanced EUV mask aligner has reached 3 nm or even 2 nm. In the near future, it may soon hit the process limit under the existing materials and structures. This means that the chip itself alone will no longer be able to meet the performance improvement. With advanced packaging as a breakthrough, we can stack different small chips together and carry out 3D packaging, which is equivalent to’ building a high building on the ground’, which makes it possible to improve the chip performance in another dimension. ”
In addition to the change of chip stacking mode, the communication frequency jumped from 4G to 5G or even to 6G, and the rise of the third generation semiconductor materials in China also called for innovation and breakthrough in EDA industry. “This is where the opportunity lies and the advantage lies. Facing the new breakthrough opportunity, what we want to do is not only’ domestic substitution’, but also we want to firmly grasp the new trend and bring the new generation products with independent intellectual property rights to the international market! ” Pu Bo said.
In August last year, Detu Technology received the R&D demand of a system-in-package multi-physical simulation platform from leading enterprises in the domestic ICT industry. In just 8 months, Detu Technology has completed the first phase of delivery, achieving most of the requirements and performance indicators put forward by customers. In June of this year, customers’ very positive evaluation and feedback on the first phase of R&D results greatly encouraged the entire R&D team of Detu Technology.
“The content of our painstaking research and collaboration can contribute to the forefront of domestic chip integration technology, which makes us feel that all the hard work is worthwhile.” Pu Bo admits that the “new challenge” in the process of developing new technology routes means that there is no model, and the “breakthrough” means “from scratch” and “from 0 to 1”, but only by “crossing the river by feeling the stones” step by step can the domestic chip industry have a bright future.
With the initial intention of “contributing to the independent rise of integrated circuits in China”, the development pace of Detu Technology is clear and firm. In the next three years, Detu Technology plans to launch products such as 3D electromagnetic field simulation tool, SIP multi-physical simulation platform, heterogeneous integrated circuit extraction tool and full-link SI/PI design platform by stages. At present, the company has completed the electromagnetic simulation software construction planning, and the core technology has covered SiP multi-physical simulation platform and full-link signal/power design platform, which can effectively help customers shorten the product development cycle and improve the stability and reliability of products.
(Source: Ningbo Science and Technology Bureau)