Trends: Democratization of Chip Design, EU Plans, and $1B from Intel
1. Intel creates a $1 billion fund
Intel announced the launch of a new $1B fund on February 7th. The fund will support startups and established companies developing new technologies for the foundry ecosystem.
In terms of performance, Apple has already surpassed Intel. According to Geekbench results (a cross-platform tool for testing the performance of computers’ CPUs), AMD, another competitor to Intel, has become the leader in balancing the performance of single-core and multi-core chips.
It’s for this reason that Intel has gone the other way.
By announcing their plans, Intel demonstrated its commitment to remain the number one semiconductor manufacturer in the United States. It was also announced that:
- Intel will make chips for its competitors: Andes Technology, Esperanto Technologies, SiFive, and Ventana Micro.
- The company plans to promote the development of design approaches that will support multiple instruction architectures, including x86, Arm, and RISC-V.
- Using advanced packaging and high-speed interfaces between chips, Intel will provide access to the open building blocks of the Intel Chiplet, which is based on RISC-V.
- As a result, the company has joined the governing consortium RISC-V International which supports free and open RISC-based instruction sets and extensions.
2. The EU wants to lead.
In terms of chip production, Europe is very far from being a leader. Taiwanese TSMC and UMC, South Korean Samsung, and American Intel are still far ahead.
A new law passed by the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, aims to attract 43 billion euros ($49 billion) in investment in the semiconductor industry to make Europe a global leader in the field. Laws need to be approved by the EU’s legislators in order to be adopted.
By 2030, Europe plans to increase its market share of microcircuits to 20% from 9% currently and produce “the most complex and energy-efficient semiconductors in Europe.”
Persistence such as this is not surprising, since Europe is securing its semiconductor shipments, which have been severely affected by the pandemic.
3. The democratization of chip design is on the rise.
Following the latest trends, now is the time to support the democratization of chips – that is, not to develop a new one, but to use off-the-shelf open-source silicon. The semiconductor industry is expected to experience exponential growth in the near future due to democratization.
Three benefits of democratization:
- Convenience
The new approach is based on the use of freely available design tools. So there is no need to spend time on long-term development, the main task is to improve the architectural design.
- New footage
By using the open development model, we can push the boundaries and attract innovative developers. Currently, there is a growing interest in novice chip designers and non-traditional developers (for example, FPGA engineers). More than 60% of the projects in the first run of the Google-sponsored Efabless-managed shuttle program with the open-source Skywater 130nm PDK are novice developers.
- The impetus to the development
The creation of new developers brings about new forms of creativity. The expansion of the design community could change the dynamics and lead to a re-evaluation of design and manufacturing methodologies.
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