Synopsys Accelerates Chip Design with NVIDIA Grace Blackwell and AI to Speed Electronic Design Automation
Rhea-AI Summary
Synopsys (SNPS) announced significant advancements in chip design acceleration through collaboration with NVIDIA, showcasing up to 30x projected performance gains using the NVIDIA Grace Blackwell platform. The announcement, made at the GTC global AI conference, highlights optimization across multiple Synopsys solutions:
- Circuit Simulation: PrimeSim SPICE workloads projected to achieve 30x speedup
- Computational Lithography: Proteus software expected to accelerate simulations by up to 20x
- TCAD Simulation: Sentaurus solution projected to accelerate results up to 10x
- Materials Engineering: QuantumATK delivering up to 100x faster results
The company is expanding support for NVIDIA Grace CPU architecture, enabling more than 15 Synopsys solutions in 2025. Additionally, the integration of NVIDIA NIM inference microservices with Synopsys.ai Copilot is projected to enable 2x faster time-to-information in generative AI-powered chip design.
Positive
- Up to 30x performance acceleration in circuit simulation workloads
- 20x speedup in computational lithography simulations
- 100x acceleration in materials engineering simulations
- 2x productivity improvement with Synopsys.ai Copilot
- Expansion to 15+ solutions optimized for NVIDIA Grace CPU
Negative
- None.
Insights
Synopsys's collaboration with NVIDIA represents a significant technological advancement for the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry with material business implications. The announced 30x performance gains in circuit simulation and 20x acceleration in computational lithography directly address the semiconductor industry's most pressing challenge: managing exponentially increasing design complexity while maintaining development schedules.
These performance improvements transform Synopsys's competitive positioning in two critical ways. First, by dramatically reducing simulation time from days to hours, Synopsys enables customers to run more comprehensive verification cycles within the same timeframe, potentially reducing costly silicon respins. Second, faster EDA tools directly translate to accelerated time-to-market for Synopsys's customers – a important advantage as semiconductor development cycles continue to compress.
The strategic partnership deepens Synopsys's integration with NVIDIA's ecosystem at a time when AI-driven chip design is emerging as the industry's next frontier. By optimizing for NVIDIA's Grace CPU architecture and leveraging NVIDIA NIM microservices, Synopsys is positioning itself at the intersection of two powerful trends: AI acceleration and advanced semiconductor design.
For investors, this partnership enhances Synopsys's moat in the EDA market by creating high-value differentiation in performance-critical applications while strengthening relationships with leading semiconductor developers who require cutting-edge tools to deliver next-generation chips powering AI workloads.
The technical significance of Synopsys's NVIDIA-accelerated EDA tools cannot be overstated. The 30x acceleration for PrimeSim represents a step-change improvement rather than an incremental enhancement. This performance leap fundamentally changes what's possible in circuit simulation, allowing verification of vastly more complex designs that would previously have been computationally prohibitive.
From an implementation perspective, Synopsys is leveraging NVIDIA's specialized hardware architecture and CUDA-X libraries across multiple critical workloads – notably in computational lithography where Proteus is projected to achieve 20x faster simulations. This acceleration is particularly valuable for advanced nodes (3nm and below) where manufacturing complexity creates computational bottlenecks.
The announcement extends beyond just raw performance to include significant AI integration. The Synopsys.ai Copilot's integration with NVIDIA NIM inference microservices demonstrates how generative AI is being applied to practical engineering workflows, potentially reducing design cycles through faster information retrieval and intelligent assistance.
What's technically noteworthy is the breadth of Synopsys solutions being optimized – spanning circuit simulation, lithography, TCAD, materials engineering, and physical verification. This comprehensive approach creates a multiplier effect where improvements across the entire toolchain compound to deliver significantly faster overall chip design workflows, addressing the growing computational demands of leading-edge semiconductor development.
Announcing Up to 30x Projected Performance Gains on the NVIDIA Grace Blackwell Platform to Speed Circuit Simulations for Next-Generation Semiconductors
News Highlights:
- Today's GTC keynote featured Synopsys as part of the ecosystem with full-stack EDA suite acceleration across design, verification, and manufacturing on NVIDIA GPU and NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries.
- Leveraging the NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip, Synopsys PrimeSim is projected to accelerate circuit simulation by up to 30x.1
- Leveraging the NVIDIA B200 Blackwell architecture, Synopsys Proteus is projected to accelerate computational lithography simulations by up to 20x.1
- NVIDIA NIM inference microservices integration driving 2x faster time-to-information with generative AI-powered Synopsys.ai Copilot.2
- Optimizing more than 15 Synopsys solutions for NVIDIA Grace CPU in 2025.
To achieve this speedup, Synopsys announced at the GTC global AI conference that it is using NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries to optimize its solutions for next-generation semiconductor development. The company is also expanding support for the NVIDIA Grace CPU architecture and enabling more than 15 Synopsys solutions in 2025.
"At GTC, we're unveiling the latest performance results observed across our leading portfolio when optimizing Synopsys solutions for the NVIDIA Blackwell platform to accelerate computationally-intensive chip design workflows," said Sassine Ghazi, president and CEO of Synopsys. "Synopsys technology is mission-critical to the productivity and capabilities of engineering teams from silicon to systems. By harnessing the performance of NVIDIA accelerated computing, we can help customers unlock new breakthroughs and deliver innovation even faster."
"Chip design is one of the most complex engineering challenges in human history," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "With NVIDIA Blackwell and CUDA-X, Synopsys is cutting simulation times from days to hours—advancing chip design to power the AI revolution."
Synopsys and NVIDIA are advancing a multi-year collaborative effort to accelerate electronic design automation (EDA) workloads. Synopsys is further applying NVIDIA accelerated compute architectures, including the NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip, to achieve significant, projected runtime gains for workflows including circuit simulation, computational lithography, Technology Computer-Aided Design (TCAD), physical verification, and materials engineering. These accelerated workflows include:
- Circuit Simulation: Synopsys PrimeSim™ SPICE simulation workloads are projected to achieve a 30x speed up utilizing the NVIDIA Grace Blackwell platform. Today, customers can achieve up to 15x speed up utilizing NVIDIA GH200 Superchips. NVIDIA accelerated computing architectures enable the simulation of challenging circuits to achieve signoff with SPICE-level accuracy, reducing runtimes from days to hours.
- Computational Lithography: The production-proven choice for accelerating computational lithography for more than two decades, Synopsys Proteus™ provides optical proximity correction (OPC) software and inverse imaging technology (ILT) to resolve challenges at leading technology nodes. By leveraging NVIDIA technologies, Synopsys is delivering game-changing technology to advance this computationally-intensive manufacturing process. Today, Synopsys Proteus is optimized for NVIDIA H100 GPUs and integrated with the NVIDIA cuLitho library, achieving a 15x speed up of OPC. Leveraging the NVIDIA Blackwell platform, Synopsys Proteus is expected to accelerate computational lithography simulations by up to 20x.
- TCAD Simulation: Early results applying GPU-enabled capabilities and NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries to the Synopsys Sentauras™ TCAD process and device simulation solution is projected to accelerate time to results up to 10x. This solution is currently under development and is expected to be available to customers later this year.
- Materials Engineering: Synopsys QuantumATK® delivers atomic-scale modeling for semiconductor and materials research and development. Utilizing CUDA-X libraries on the NVIDIA Hopper architecture can accelerate time to results up to 100x, enabling customers to simulate and analyze a wide range of materials with greater efficiency.
Synopsys plans to continue enabling accelerated computing on NVIDIA platforms throughout its portfolio.
Advancing Synopsys Solutions with NVIDIA AI Software
Synopsys and NVDIA's efforts to accelerate chip design extend to speeding chip design with generative AI using NVIDIA NIM microservices:
- Generative AI Software for Chip Design: Today, customers using Synopsys' Gen AI-powered knowledge assistant, Synopsys.ai Copilot, are realizing an average 2x productivity improvement compared to prior methods. The integration of NVIDIA NIM microservices is projected to enable an additional 2x speedup for even faster time to answers.2
Optimizing Synopsys EDA with Grace CPU
- Additionally, Synopsys is enabling more than 15 solutions using the Grace CPU architecture for Synopsys EDA workloads spanning circuit simulation, physical verification, static timing analysis, and functional verification. The company plans to further increase support on the Grace CPU architecture in 2025.
Synopsys at GTC 2025
Synopsys is demonstrating at GTC 2025 March 18th through 21st in booth #222 in the Design and Simulation Pavilion. The company is also presenting sessions on semiconductor manufacturing and materials engineering and AI-driven chip design. For more information about Synopsys' presence at GTC, visit https://www.synopsys.com/events/nvidia-gtc.html.
1 Compared to CPU-based models.
2 Synopsys.ai Copilot knowledge assistance without NVIDIA NIM integration.
About Synopsys
Catalyzing the era of pervasive intelligence, Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS) delivers trusted and comprehensive silicon to systems design solutions, from electronic design automation to silicon IP and system verification and validation. We partner closely with semiconductor and systems customers across a wide range of industries to maximize their R&D capability and productivity, powering innovation today that ignites the ingenuity of tomorrow. Learn more at www.synopsys.com.
© 2025 Synopsys, Inc. All rights reserved. Synopsys, the Synopsys logo, and other Synopsys trademarks are available at https://www.synopsys.com/company/legal/trademarks-brands.html. Other company or product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements regarding strategies related to products, technology and services and planned product releases and capabilities. These statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause our actual results, time frames or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Such risks, uncertainties and factors that could affect Synopsys' results is included in filings we make with the SEC from time to time, including in the sections entitled "Risk Factors" in our latest Annual Report on Form 10-K and in our latest Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. The information provided herein is as of March 18, 2025. Synopsys undertakes no duty to, and does not intend to, update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless required by law.
Editorial Contact
Kelli Wheeler
Synopsys, Inc.
corp-pr@synopsys.com
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SOURCE Synopsys, Inc.
FAQ
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