Yes, you CAN use the Cloud!
Unlocking efficiency within specialist, European IC design companies.
In recent years, the adoption of cloud services has surged across various industries, revolutionizing the way businesses operate. From small start-ups to large enterprises, cloud solutions offer scalability, flexibility and cost-efficiency that traditional on-premises systems often cannot match. This trend is particularly impactful in high-value engineering design fields, such as integrated circuit (IC) and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design.
The Competitive Edge in IC Design
Developing the latest IC is extremely competitive where design quality and time-to-market are both critical. Missing quality can lead to silicon re-spins which is both expensive and time consuming. Miss the market window and it’s game over. Best-in-class companies strive to leverage products, ideas, and services that provide a competitive edge. Exploring cloud compute services that delivers robust, secure, and scalable environments is increasingly common.
Introducing EDA Solutions Managed Cloud Service
EDA Solutions has developed a custom service offering, simply named Managed Cloud, to address the specific needs of IC design teams for SME and start-up companies. This service provides IC design teams with immediate access to a secure, managed, and scalable EDA environment. Paul Double, EDA Solutions founder and CEO , explains, “Our service allows design teams to focus on innovation and design, leaving IT management and resource setup to us.” This approach ensures that engineers can concentrate on their core tasks without being with IT-related issues
The ‘Eureka Moment’
The ‘eureka moment’ for EDA Solutions came about during a customer meeting where the challenges of meeting an aggressive project schedule were discussed. The customer needed extra compute resources and was frustrated that valuable IC designers were being interrupted to solve infrastructure and EDA issues. EDA Solutions had the operational experience to configure a cloud service and expert EDA engineers knowledgeable in custom IC.
Technical and business benefits
The Managed Cloud Service offers both technical and business benefits. It provides operational efficiency and enhanced collaboration. Cloud compute enables clients to quickly increase their compute resources to address short-term peak requirements. In analog IC design, there is a seemingly insatiable demand for simulation, which can be very compute intensive. Cloud compute provides elasticity in hardware availability to solve both challenges
Addressing customer challenges
One of the primary reasons customers are drawn to the managed cloud service is the elimination of inefficiencies caused by specialized IT or EDA teams. Customers often face challenges that shift
their focus from core IC design to IT management. The service resolves this issue, allowing them to focus on their design work. By leveraging expertise in EDA tools, environments can be quickly updated to accommodate customer needs, ensuring seamless access to design resources.
Smaller companies are aware that larger companies benefit from cloud-based infrastructures, but they often lack the bandwidth to explore such a transition. Our customers trust EDA Solutions’ technical ability and understanding of smaller companies’ needs. Turning to us to enable a transition to the cloud removes many of the risks.
Universal appeal
Our managed cloud service is universally applicable, catering to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups. Khalid Teama, EDA’s Technical Director, emphasizes This flexibility is further enhanced by our pricing schemes and plans, which are tailored to meet the financial capabilities and needs of our diverse customer base.
Customer engagement process
The process of engaging with new clients involves four stages:
Discovery: Initial conversations to understand customer requirements, design challenges, and workflow.
Assessment: Evaluating requirements and creating an assessment document to facilitate smoother deployment.
Planning: Tailoring a plan with specifications, technical details, and costs, offering multiple options for customers.
Implementation and Quality Assurance: Building, testing, and rolling out the environment, providing secure and seamless access to users.
Security measures
Security is always a top priority for our customers. explains, “Design data and PDK data on the cloud are encrypted, ensuring they are not readable by the outside world.” Access is secured through VPN connections, exclusive certificates, and strong passwords. Additionally, security groups within machines are configured to work on limited ports, further enhancing protection.
EDA Solutions is centering its cloud solution on Amazon Web Services. AWS delivers scale, coverage, reliability and security. Of course there are other renowned providers. But we chose AWS because requirements of our customers. In time, we expect to support other options, but for now we are committed to being experts with AWS.
Cost management and scalability
To prevent unexpected costs, we offer options for resAces, allowing temporary upgrades to meet higher demands. Teama assures, “Customers are made aware of costs upfront, and alarms are set to manage expenses effectively.” This approach ensures that customers can scale resources without incurring excessive costs.
Clear skies ahead for Managed Cloud
Looking ahead, Double is optimistic about the future of the Managed Cloud service. “We are continuously exploring new ways to enhance our service, incorporating the latest technologies to meet the evolving needs of our clients,” he said. “And our commitment to innovation ensures we continue to add value both for our partner, Siemens EDA, and more importantly for our common customers.
Related material
- Case study: EDA Solutions’ Managed EDA Service transforms management of customers ASIC design infrastructure
https://www.eda-solutions.com/news/case-study-eda-solutions-managed-eda-service/ - Service products: descriptions, factsheets and explanatory videos
https://www.eda-solutions.com/services/ - Security Pillar – AWS Well-Architected Framework https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/security-pillar/welcome.html
Trademark acknowledgment
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