Transform Your EDA Workflows with NetApp FlexCache

Electronic design automation (EDA) refers to the use of computer-aided tools to design and to verify semiconductor chips. NetApp® FlexCache® software is transforming the way that semiconductor companies handle EDA workflows. If you’re dealing with distributed teams and massive data growth, FlexCache makes design anywhere” possible by letting EDA workloads expand seamlessly into the cloud.  

This capability means that you don’t have to worry about changing your existing workflows just to tap into cloud resources. It directly tackles the industry’s need for speed—getting products to market faster while managing the complexity of new chip designs, like those at the 3nm node that demand a lot more computing power and storage. With FlexCache, you can streamline your design processes, make collaboration easier, and cut down on costs so that complexity doesn’t slow you down.  

Semiconductor companies that manage EDA workflows face significant hurdles, and these challenges can significantly hinder productivity and delay project timelines. For example, your organization has to deal with: 

• Billions of small files. EDA environments involve billions of small files, each needing rapid access, which creates huge metadata operations that can account for 60% to 80% of I/O. 

• WAN latency. WAN latency can significantly hinder collaboration for your globally distributed teams, delaying design iterations. 

• Massive dataset synchronization. Synchronizing massive datasets across multiple locations is both time-consuming and expensive, leading to slower design cycles. 

• Escalating costs. The rising costs of infrastructure management, including storage, servers, and networks, pose major challenges for your company. 

• Maintaining data consistency. It can be extremely challenging to maintain data consistency across multiple sites while delivering local-like performance. 

• Cloud bursting requirements. To handle peak demand periods, you need to efficiently burst workloads to the cloud without causing synchronization issues or incurring excessive costs. 

 The industry’s move to advanced nodes like 3nm has amplified these challenges, with a sixfold increase in computing needs and a fourfold increase in storage requirements. The complexity of modern chip designs and the need to iterate quickly have placed enormous pressure on your IT infrastructure, making traditional approaches to data management increasingly impractical. 

A recent blog post explains how NetApp ONTAP® software enables more concurrent EDA job sets than any other vendor’s offering, based on the results of an EDA benchmark SPECstorage Solution. This level of performance is critical for semiconductor companies like yours that are looking to streamline their workflows and to maximize efficiency. 

FlexCache transforms EDA workflows by creating sparse, writable replicas of data volumes that intelligently cache only what’s needed for specific workloads. With this technology, your distributed teams can access the required data with low latency and benefit from a local-like experience, no matter where the original data is stored. Your organization improves efficiency, and it also simplifies collaboration across sites. 

Key benefits of FlexCache  

• Faster design cycles. Local-like access to remote data means quicker design iterations and less time waiting on data transfers. 

• Optimized resource use. On-demand cloud bursting helps balance your workloads during peak times so that you can use existing infrastructure more effectively and minimize downtime. 

• Enhanced collaboration. Data consistency is maintained across multiple sites, enabling seamless collaboration between your teams, which is essential for large, globally distributed design projects. 

• Lower costs. Efficient caching and deduplication reduce your storage costs and help you avoid overprovisioning, which means reduced capital expenditures and lower operational costs. 

For example, a team in Austin, Texas, can work on a chip design that’s stored in Seattle, Washington, with submillisecond write times. Such write speed leads to faster iterations and reduced time to market. This flexibility enables engineers to focus on the design itself rather than on the complexities of data management, which is key for your organization to remain competitive in today’s market. 

FlexCache supports seamless cloud bursting, enabling your organization to take advantage of cloud scalability without heavy data migration. By creating a sparse cache in the cloud that connects back to on-premises data, you can:  

• Load only what you need. Data is pulled on demand, reducing unnecessary transfers and minimizing latency, which translates to faster job completion. 

• Set up fast. Reduce setup time for cloud environments from days to hours, meaning that your teams can quickly adapt to changing project needs or sudden increases in workload. 

• Simplify synchronization. Changes synchronize automatically across your environments, eliminating manual overhead and reducing the risk of errors that arise from manual data handling. 

• Control costs. Use cloud resources efficiently and only when you need them, helping you manage cloud costs and avoid unnecessary expenditures during low-demand periods.  

A true hybrid cloud model optimizes both on-premises and cloud resources, enabling faster scaling and reducing infrastructure costs. Because you can use the cloud as an extension of your on-premises infrastructure without the usual complications, FlexCache makes cloud bursting not only feasible but also practical, even for highly complex workloads. 

Arm, a leading semiconductor IP company, has achieved significant gains by implementing FlexCache, including a 50% reduction in job completion times, improved efficiency, and better handling of over 10 million jobs. FlexCache has enabled the company to efficiently scale up for “spiky” workloads and to access tens of petabytes of data without performance lags. This scalability means that Arm can handle high-volume tasks during peak times without needing to overprovision on-premises resources, saving both time and money. Moreover, the ability to provide consistent performance across distributed teams helps Arm improve overall productivity and shorten design cycles. 

Business impact 

The impact of FlexCache for EDA is clear:  

• Faster time to market. Companies report up to a 50% reduction in job completion times, resulting in faster time to market for complex chip designs. This speed is crucial in an industry where first to market often equates to a competitive advantage. 

• Lower capital expenditures. You can cut down on overprovisioning by using cloud resources only as needed, reducing the need for up-front investments in physical hardware and providing financial flexibility. 

• Boosted productivity. Your engineers access data faster, leading to more efficient design iterations and enabling design teams to focus on innovation rather than having to wait for resources or resolve data bottlenecks. 

• Better collaboration. Teams across the globe work as if they’re local, enhancing communication and project velocity. This type of cohesion across your distributed teams is key to managing the growing complexity of chip designs and to achieving project milestones on time. 

• Scalable and flexible infrastructure. By making infrastructure scalable, your company can easily adapt to changes in workload demand without significant delays or disruptions to ongoing projects. This agility is particularly beneficial for accommodating rapid business growth or new project demands.  

FlexCache is not just a technical solution; it gives you strategic advantages by enabling more responsive and agile design processes. Your organization can spend less time on managing data and infrastructure and can focus more time on delivering high-quality, innovative products. 

Accelerate your EDA workflows with NetApp FlexCache. Here’s how you can act now:  

• Schedule a demonstration. See how FlexCache works for your specific workloads and gain insights into how it can improve your current processes. 

• Consult with NetApp experts. Assess your current storage challenges and understand the potential positive impact that FlexCache can have on your infrastructure and bottom line. 

• Start a free trial. Experience the performance and flexibility firsthand by starting a free trial. It will help you quantify the time and cost savings that FlexCache can bring to your organization. 

• Join an upcoming webinar. Attend a NetApp hosted webinar to learn more about how to optimize EDA workflows in hybrid cloud environments, featuring real-world use cases and success stories from other leading semiconductor companies. 

Join industry leaders like Arm and see how FlexCache can reduce your time to market, lower your infrastructure costs, and enhance your team collaboration. Empower your design teams today with NetApp FlexCache and tackle the increasing complexity of chip design head-on. 

• NetApp FlexCache overview 

• Best Practices for Electronic Design Automation Workloads with Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP 

• Accelerate your EDA operations with high-performance cloud storage 

• Blog: Accelerating EDA with the Agility of AWS and NetApp Data Services 

• Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP 

• NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP Flash Cache improves cloud EDA workflows in Google Cloud 

• Electronic design automation best practices in ONTAP 

• Case study: Arm Scales Performance for Chip Design Using Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP