Frost & Sullivan releases the 'Global Semiconductor Manufacturing EDA Industry Development White Paper'

Data source: Analysis by Frost & Sullivan

EDA, as a key upstream link in the semiconductor industry chain, provides support for core steps such as circuit design, functional verification, and layout routing for chip design. It effectively ensures the yield and efficiency of the wafer manufacturing process and guarantees the completion of final design verification in the packaging and testing phase.

Data source: Analysis by Frost & Sullivan

During the wafer production process, process development, yield control, and cost efficiency are important challenges faced by the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Process development requires a significant amount of time and resources, while yield directly affects production efficiency and costs. Manufacturing EDA is a key breakthrough to solve the dilemmas of the semiconductor manufacturing industry:

• Shorten time to marketManufacturing EDA optimizes processes, reduces the number of iterations in process development and design, and accelerates the conversion from design to production.

   

• Reduce trial and error costsManufacturing EDA tools, while ensuring the accuracy of logical functions, utilize advanced simulation and analysis technologies to conduct multi-dimensional evaluations and optimizations on the performance, power consumption, and cost of specific semiconductor processes;

   

• Improve mass production yield: Through precise device modeling and process simulation, key parameters during optimization are optimized to reduce manufacturing defects;

   

• Enhance industrial competitivenessBy improving the efficiency of design and production, reducing R&D and production costs, and enhancing the market competitiveness of enterprises.

EDA, as a core enabling tool in the semiconductor industry, has become a cornerstone support for the industry through the comprehensive optimization of large-scale integrated circuit design, simulation, and verification processes through computer software. EDA tools are mainly divided into manufacturing EDA and design EDA.

Data source: Analysis by Frost & Sullivan

The upstream of semiconductor EDA tools mainly includes hardware devices, operating systems, development tools, and other auxiliary software, with EDA tool companies in the midstream; downstream mainly includes chip design, manufacturing, and packaging testing companies. The semiconductor manufacturing EDA industry chain has formed a complete ecosystem from software and hardware to high-end process solutions.

Data source: Analysis by Frost & Sullivan

From a global market perspective, the global manufacturing EDA market size reached $1.81 billion in 2023. In recent years, manufacturing processes have had an increasingly significant impact on the semiconductor industry, with an average annual compound growth rate of 16.9% from 2019 to 2023. In the future, as process nodes continue to shrink and challenges in the manufacturing process increase, more precise manufacturing EDA is needed to address these issues. It is expected that by 2028, the market size will increase to $3.37 billion, showing a steady growth trend.

Data source: Analysis by Frost & Sullivan

Since the Sino-US trade friction in 2018, Chinese enterprises have successively faced US sanctions. In August 2022, the BIS (U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security) implemented new export controls on key technologies such as EDA software, which has stimulated the domestic EDA industry in China. The importance of independent research and development and application of domestic EDA tools has become increasingly prominent. At the same time, with the continuous miniaturization of semiconductor process nodes, the Chinese government has placed great emphasis on the development of manufacturing-oriented EDA tools to support the design and verification of advanced processes. It is expected that by 2028, the manufacturing-oriented EDA market in China will reach 4.22 billion yuan, with an average annual compound growth rate of 21.2%. Due to the increasing demand for the semiconductor industry in China, the average annual compound growth rate is higher than the global level.

Data source: Analysis by Frost & Sullivan

• Government policies strongly support the development of the EDA industryAgainst the backdrop of Sino-US trade frictions and technological blockades, the autonomy and controllability of the semiconductor industry chain are receiving increasing attention. In recent years, national and local governments have successively introduced a series of policies to support the development of the semiconductor industry, covering multiple aspects such as research and development production, talent cultivation, investment and financing, and taxation. As a key link in the semiconductor industry chain, the EDA industry has naturally become a focus of policy support. The process of domestic EDA substitution is driving the rapid development of China's manufacturing-oriented EDA industry;

   

• Local EDA companies in manufacturing accelerate their breakthroughAlthough the EDA market is still monopolized by overseas giants, domestic enterprises have begun to emerge. In recent years, the market share of the three major international giants in China has gradually decreased, and companies across all categories in IC design and manufacturing have been breaking through. For example, HuaDa Jiutian, which excels in design, and Guolun Electronics, the first listed EDA company in China, as well as Peifeng Tuonan, which covers all categories of EDA manufacturing, provide development directions for domestic EDA manufacturers.

   

• Technological evolution drives the development of EDA technologyChip design is extremely complex, and with the 'Moore's Law' driving progress, the number of transistors inside a single chip doubles every 18 months. In the future, 3nm chips will contain nearly 16 billion transistors. Without highly automated design tools and processes, chip design drawings cannot be completed. Due to the complex process of chip design, multi-physical simulation technology is a core technology that EDA companies are focusing on breaking through.

The advancement of semiconductor manufacturing technology has driven the growing demand for manufacturing-oriented EDA. Multi-physics simulation technology has become a key breakthrough area in the development of manufacturing-oriented EDA. In the future, using digital twins to create virtual wafer factories for simulation prediction has become an industry consensus, and there is enormous market development potential for virtual wafer factories.

A Virtual Wafer Fab, also known as a digital twin wafer fab, is a concept based on computer simulation and digital twin technology, used to simulate and optimize the semiconductor wafer manufacturing process. It transforms the physical entities and operations of an actual wafer manufacturing plant into a digital model's virtual representation. Through the Virtual Wafer Fab, chip manufacturers can conduct various experiments and optimizations to improve process parameters, reduce defect rates, increase production capacity, and lower costs. The Virtual Wafer Fab helps manufacturers better understand and predict changes and influencing factors in the actual wafer manufacturing process, thereby optimizing production plans and decisions.

Data source: Analysis by Frost & Sullivan

• Improve decision-making, increase innovation and flexibilityIn virtual wafer fabs, manufacturers can quickly identify bottlenecks, optimize resources, and enhance decision-making capabilities by leveraging digital twins and AI technologies.

   

• Process optimization, quality improvementVirtual wafer fabs utilize digital twin technology to enable chip manufacturers to test various process parameters and configurations in a risk-free virtual environment, identify and incorporate unforeseen complex physical phenomena, thereby optimizing manufacturing processes, increasing production, and reducing waste;

   

• Reduce defect and production delay risksVirtual wafer fabs can reduce defect and production delay risks. First, they simulate manufacturing processes to identify potential problems early; second, they quantify uncertainties and assist senior decision-making through disturbance simulation; third, they guide efficient recovery of production in response to major disruptions; fourth, they virtualize pre-production of new facilities to identify key issues ahead of time.

   

• Shorten time to market, cost-effectiveIn virtual wafer fabs, manufacturers can use digital twin technology for simulation and prediction to detect and fix problems early on. The full-process digital twin technology can also rapidly improve early production efficiency and speed up product development and market launch.

With the advancement of process nodes, manufacturing smaller chips requires higher precision and more complex equipment. The total expenditure on production, R&D, and plant facilities at wafer fabs will increase rapidly, necessitating the development of virtual wafer fabs using digital twin technology to reduce the trial-and-error costs of design and process optimization. It is estimated that by 2030, the global market size for virtual wafer fab-related software will reach 151.71 billion RMB, with China's market size reaching 49.32 billion RMB; by 2035, the global market size for virtual wafer fab-related software will reach 196.19 billion RMB; and China's market size will reach 71.79 billion RMB.

Data source: Analysis by Frost & Sullivan

• Virtual wafer fabs will become more integrated, covering the entire production processWith technological progress, virtual wafer fabs will become more integrated, capable of simulating and optimizing the entire production process from design to manufacturing packaging, as well as supply chain management;

   

• The virtual wafer fab will integrate other artificial intelligence technologies to create an intelligent virtual wafer fab.Big data analysis and artificial intelligence will play an increasingly important role in virtual wafer fabs, helping with predictive maintenance, quality control, and resource optimization. By then, virtual wafer fabs will become true smart factories, with artificial intelligence changing semiconductor manufacturing through simulated automated planning (capacity wafer startup) and wafer fab scheduling, thereby enabling risk-aware decision-making and dynamic production control.