Key Takeaways
- Silvaco and NVIDIA collaborate to advance semiconductor digital twins
- The partnership leverages NVIDIA's accelerated computing, AI, and CUDA-X libraries
- Silvaco's physics-based modeling expertise is combined with NVIDIA's technology to build high-fidelity digital twins
- The collaboration focuses on GPU-accelerated physics simulation, AI-driven surrogate modeling, digital twin visualization, and scaled engineering workflows
- Expected benefits include reduced simulation runtimes, increased design productivity, and improved accuracy
Introduction to Semiconductor Digital Twins
The semiconductor industry is undergoing a significant transformation with the advent of digital twins. Silvaco Group, Inc., a leading provider of EDA software and semiconductor IP solutions, has partnered with NVIDIA to advance next-generation digital twins for semiconductor design and manufacturing. This collaboration combines Silvaco's decades of physics-based modeling expertise with NVIDIA's accelerated computing, AI, and CUDA-X libraries.
Partnership Focus Areas
The partnership between Silvaco and NVIDIA focuses on four key areas:
GPU-Accelerated Physics Simulation
Silvaco intends to use NVIDIA's accelerated computing and CUDA-X libraries to accelerate its semiconductor device, process, photonics, and multiphysics simulation solutions. This is expected to result in dramatic reductions in simulation runtimes and increased design productivity. For example, Silvaco completed a fully scaled 3D FDTD simulation of a photonic edge coupler with 3.2 billion mesh nodes on 32 NVIDIA GPUs connected with NVLink in under four hours, achieving less than 0.15 dB difference between measurement and simulation.
AI-Driven Surrogate Modeling
Silvaco plans to leverage NVIDIA PhysicsNeMo to develop customizable AI surrogate models that complement high-fidelity physics simulation and accelerate exploration of design alternatives.
Digital Twin Visualization and Collaboration
Silvaco aims to connect its digital twin environment with NVIDIA Omniverse libraries and NVIDIA Cosmos to deliver collaborative, real-time visualization and simulation environments.
Scaled Engineering Workflows
Silvaco intends to establish cloud-native workflows that support design, testing, and validation across distributed teams and compute environments.
Comparison of Simulation Technologies
| Technology | Simulation Time | Accuracy |
|---|---|---|
| CPU-based simulation | Several days | 0.5 dB difference |
| NVIDIA GPU-accelerated simulation | Under 4 hours | Less than 0.15 dB difference |
Delivering Measurable Customer Value
By combining their technologies, Silvaco and NVIDIA expect to help customers design, simulate, and optimize increasingly complex semiconductor systems with unprecedented speed and accuracy.
Bottom Line
The partnership between Silvaco and NVIDIA has the potential to revolutionize the semiconductor industry by providing high-fidelity digital twins that can predict, optimize, and validate complex systems. With expected benefits including reduced simulation runtimes, increased design productivity, and improved accuracy, this collaboration is poised to deliver significant value to customers in the semiconductor industry.