What’s the Future of the Semiconductor Industry?
The future of the semiconductor industry is in leveraging technology trends like artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT). Those who can leverage AI and IoT to innovate will be successful in the future of the semiconductor industry.

Key Trends
Several key trends are shaping the future of semiconductors. These include new technologies and broadened markets, but we are also seeing novel uses of existing technology through 2.5D packaging with chiplets on mature process nodes, for example.

Leveraging New Technologies
Today, there are three key technology trends driving the future of the semiconductor industry:

Open source hardware is disrupting the market and changing how companies think about design.
IoT increases the demands on cost effective semiconductors.
5G accelerates demand for high-performance computing devices.
Broadening Markets
At the same time, the use of semiconductors has broadened significantly. Today, semiconductors power everything from everyday electronics (such as smartphones) to sensors in self-driving cars — and beyond. In fact, I can now ask my refrigerator to order groceries for me as I run out of milk.

Emergence of New Vertically Integrated Systems Companies
Vertically integrated systems companies will also be pushing the demands of semiconductor designs, as non-traditional semiconductor companies produce their own devices and platforms to support their ecosystems.

Take Apple, for example. In late 2020, they announced M1, the first processor designed for Mac following the growing semiconductor design that they have been doing on their mobile devices. So, why are other systems companies following Apple?

“Apple is designing more of its own chips to gain greater control over the performance of its devices and differentiate them from rivals.” — Bloomberg

By vertically integrating, these companies can benefit from traceability, particularly for platform-based design. If you don’t have a traceable platform, you’re going to run into issues. But if you have an IP management system with traceability — such as Methodics IPLM — you’ll know what you have and where you have it. This helps you accelerate innovation and improve performance.

So, What’s the Future of Semiconductor Design?
The future of semiconductor design is in conquering the complexity of chip design today by understanding all design data and meta data associated with the IP that makes up semiconductors.

As technology, markets, and business strategies shift, it impacts the future of semiconductor design. And in some ways, it renews the challenges facing semiconductor design teams.

Key Challenges to Semiconductor Design
There are several challenges in semiconductor design, but the biggest are time-to-market and cost.

Time-to-Market
Time-to-market is a major concern in semiconductor design.

According to a Kalypso study, nearly half of semiconductors don’t meet time-to-market demands:

Only 45% of semiconductor product launches meet their original launch date.
More than 60% of all semiconductor designs require at least one re-spin.
Only 59% of semiconductor designs make it into production.
Cost
The cost of manufacturing a semiconductor is high. In fact, over 40% of semiconductor development projects exceed the planned budget.

And, when a semiconductor misses time-to-market window, revenue shrinks:

27% reduction when a semiconductor is 3 months late.
47% reduction when a semiconductor is 6 months late.
What Causes These Challenges?
The root causes of semiconductor challenges are many:

Enterprise engineering environments are not keeping up with the complexity of designs.
Organizations report minimal component reuse.
Acquisitions create design silos.
Design data sizes are exploding, slowing down performance.
Manufacturers lack traceability from requirements to design to verification, triggering re-spins.
There’s a lack of communication of requirements change.
There’s reuse of an existing IP that misses key requirements of the overall design.