Periodic Reporting for period 2 - HIPER (A revolutionary I/O Planning Solution for 2.5D & 3D Nanoelectronic Systems Design)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2019-08-01 do 2020-07-31
HIPER is the European SME Instrument Phase 2 project of Monozukuri Spa, a European Electronic Design Automation (EDA) company. Our mission is to address the challenges of 2.5D & 3D design of next-generation electronic products by delivering revolutionary EDA software solutions and methodologies. The project delivers an innovative software solution for the Input/Output (I/O) planning and optimization of complex 2.5D nanoelectronic systems.
The GENIO product, the outcome of the HIPER project, is a revolutionary fully integrated and agnostic design environment working in the 2.5D and 3D - IC system design space.
Today, more and more applications – Internet of Things, Automotive, Webscale, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Network Processors, Telemedicine – are driving for highly complex solutions that require the integration of multiple functionalities, high-speed processing, and storing of the enormous amount of data.
The traditional integration into a single piece of silicon has become technically challenging and economically not more viable. The technology evolution opens the door to a new level of integration able to cope with Moore’s law: new sophisticated ways to put chips together with wafer-level packaging options, interposers for 2.5D integration, and outright 3D chip stacking.
Heterogeneous integration is the new terrain the industry is moving but the diverse nature of silicon and package technologies and the use of high-speed interconnections demands major enhancements in co-design capabilities, to enable planning, implementation and analysis across different engineering domains as well as to provide a complete, consistent model across tool platforms.
The communication among the compute, memory, interface, sense, actuate components is going to play a fundamental role in the feasibility itself of the final system. In other words, I/O resources planning and optimization is a critical step for any design implementation flow and for its efficient and timely implementation.
Here comes our revolutionary solution GENIO based on HIPER technology.
The main objectives of the SME Instrument Phase 2 HIPER project have been reached successfully:
The first objective is related to the improvement of HIPER tool functionalities and its integration in the EDA vendor systems. The technical area of Monozukuri has worked on the enhancement of the tool in order to validate the solution on different customers’ test cases. The activities related to software development have been finalized by the end of month 24 delivering the final product: GENIO.
The second objective is related to commercialization: several potential investors and EDA stakeholders have been approached and they showed a real interest in the HIPER project/GENIO product.
The third objective is related to the company’s growth. Indeed, the Monozukuri team has increased from 4 (at month 1) to 13 personnel figures (at month 24) in both technical and marketing areas. Furthermore, Monozukuri collaborated with external companies in Business Development, Marketing, Legal, and IP services.
The major objective reached by the end of the project is the market launch of GENIO product based on the HIPER technology that has already received interests from key potential customers.
Regarding the dissemination and communication activities, Monozukuri has been invited and has participated in several national and international events to share the HIPER project and GENIO product. Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 emergency, international meetings such as DAC in the US and DATE in Europe have been canceled and Monzoukuri could not join the events.
The GENIO product, the outcome of the HIPER project, is a revolutionary fully integrated and agnostic design environment working in the 2.5D and 3D - IC system design space.
Today, more and more applications – Internet of Things, Automotive, Webscale, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Network Processors, Telemedicine – are driving for highly complex solutions that require the integration of multiple functionalities, high-speed processing, and storing of the enormous amount of data.
The traditional integration into a single piece of silicon has become technically challenging and economically not more viable. The technology evolution opens the door to a new level of integration able to cope with Moore’s law: new sophisticated ways to put chips together with wafer-level packaging options, interposers for 2.5D integration, and outright 3D chip stacking.
Heterogeneous integration is the new terrain the industry is moving but the diverse nature of silicon and package technologies and the use of high-speed interconnections demands major enhancements in co-design capabilities, to enable planning, implementation and analysis across different engineering domains as well as to provide a complete, consistent model across tool platforms.
The communication among the compute, memory, interface, sense, actuate components is going to play a fundamental role in the feasibility itself of the final system. In other words, I/O resources planning and optimization is a critical step for any design implementation flow and for its efficient and timely implementation.
Here comes our revolutionary solution GENIO based on HIPER technology.
The main objectives of the SME Instrument Phase 2 HIPER project have been reached successfully:
The first objective is related to the improvement of HIPER tool functionalities and its integration in the EDA vendor systems. The technical area of Monozukuri has worked on the enhancement of the tool in order to validate the solution on different customers’ test cases. The activities related to software development have been finalized by the end of month 24 delivering the final product: GENIO.
The second objective is related to commercialization: several potential investors and EDA stakeholders have been approached and they showed a real interest in the HIPER project/GENIO product.
The third objective is related to the company’s growth. Indeed, the Monozukuri team has increased from 4 (at month 1) to 13 personnel figures (at month 24) in both technical and marketing areas. Furthermore, Monozukuri collaborated with external companies in Business Development, Marketing, Legal, and IP services.
The major objective reached by the end of the project is the market launch of GENIO product based on the HIPER technology that has already received interests from key potential customers.
Regarding the dissemination and communication activities, Monozukuri has been invited and has participated in several national and international events to share the HIPER project and GENIO product. Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 emergency, international meetings such as DAC in the US and DATE in Europe have been canceled and Monzoukuri could not join the events.
HIPER Project started on the 1st of August 2018 and ended on the 31st of July 2020.
During the first half of the project, HIPER has been developed according to the technical Work Packages “WP1 – Functionality of I/O Planning Software” and “WP2 – Customization of software for any EDA tool”. The design platform has been enhanced and the algorithm – Cross Hierarchical Optimization – has been improved. The integration with the Synopsys physical implementation tools was made at the beginning of the project. This activity was followed by the validation of the integration with Synopsys Signoff tools, after the signature of the extension of the MLA.
In the second half of the project, the “WP3 - Testing of Functional Improvements within current Design Platforms”, started at month 13 and finalized at month 24, focused on the testing of the HIPER technology on real use cases with satisfying results, that have shown the advantage of the use of HIPER technology in terms of introducing automation in an error-prone and time-consuming design process.
According to “WP4 – Dissemination, Exploitation, and Communication”, Monozukuri joined several national and international events promoted by European Commission, EDA stakeholders, NCPs and EEN in order to share the HIPER project’s development. In the second half of the project due to the Covid-19 emergency, several international events (DAC and DATE) have been canceled. Anyway, Monozukuri had the opportunity to join the European event “EFECS” held in Helsinki in November 2019 in which had the opportunity to meet with partners to collaborate in future projects.
Furthermore, even if the Covid-19 emergency had an impact on the commercial discussions and on participation in some events, the communication has been improved as much as possible. In fact, the social media channels have been implemented and linked to the new website with a web page dedicated to the GENIO product and to the results of the HIPER project.
The activities related to the IP have been supported by “European Patent and Trademark attorneys”, a specialized Law firm working also on the extension of Italian patent to Europe and the US.
The “WP5- Project Management” has been implemented by the management and the team is grown, in the first half of the project, from 4 to 8 personnel figures and in the second half from 8 to 13, committed to the Technical and to the Marketing area.
During the first half of the project, HIPER has been developed according to the technical Work Packages “WP1 – Functionality of I/O Planning Software” and “WP2 – Customization of software for any EDA tool”. The design platform has been enhanced and the algorithm – Cross Hierarchical Optimization – has been improved. The integration with the Synopsys physical implementation tools was made at the beginning of the project. This activity was followed by the validation of the integration with Synopsys Signoff tools, after the signature of the extension of the MLA.
In the second half of the project, the “WP3 - Testing of Functional Improvements within current Design Platforms”, started at month 13 and finalized at month 24, focused on the testing of the HIPER technology on real use cases with satisfying results, that have shown the advantage of the use of HIPER technology in terms of introducing automation in an error-prone and time-consuming design process.
According to “WP4 – Dissemination, Exploitation, and Communication”, Monozukuri joined several national and international events promoted by European Commission, EDA stakeholders, NCPs and EEN in order to share the HIPER project’s development. In the second half of the project due to the Covid-19 emergency, several international events (DAC and DATE) have been canceled. Anyway, Monozukuri had the opportunity to join the European event “EFECS” held in Helsinki in November 2019 in which had the opportunity to meet with partners to collaborate in future projects.
Furthermore, even if the Covid-19 emergency had an impact on the commercial discussions and on participation in some events, the communication has been improved as much as possible. In fact, the social media channels have been implemented and linked to the new website with a web page dedicated to the GENIO product and to the results of the HIPER project.
The activities related to the IP have been supported by “European Patent and Trademark attorneys”, a specialized Law firm working also on the extension of Italian patent to Europe and the US.
The “WP5- Project Management” has been implemented by the management and the team is grown, in the first half of the project, from 4 to 8 personnel figures and in the second half from 8 to 13, committed to the Technical and to the Marketing area.
The expected results concern the full development of HIPER software technology in order to reach customers and close a commercial agreement with a few of them at the end of the project.
At the end of the project, the expected results have been reached and exceeded. In fact, HIPER project has released the GENIO product that has been launched onto the market at the end of August 2020.
The impact will be huge for the emerging electronic markets: FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) and all the advanced markets such as Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Autonomous Driving, Networking, and Big Data. All of them will benefit of the use of the HIPER project because the availability of GENIO will rise the performance of their electronic products while reducing cost and time to market.
At the end of the project, the expected results have been reached and exceeded. In fact, HIPER project has released the GENIO product that has been launched onto the market at the end of August 2020.
The impact will be huge for the emerging electronic markets: FAANGs (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) and all the advanced markets such as Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Autonomous Driving, Networking, and Big Data. All of them will benefit of the use of the HIPER project because the availability of GENIO will rise the performance of their electronic products while reducing cost and time to market.