Siemens and Synopsys: EDA's future is agentic workflow automation

Semiconductor Engineering gathered views from Siemens EDA, Synopsys, Arteris and Keysight: AI's main opportunity in EDA is orchestrating the whole design flow, not improving individual tools. Customers demand at least a 2x cut in time-to-results, but agents must preserve design intent and be backed by deterministic verification.

• Siemens EDA: customers want time-to-results cut by at least 2x
• Synopsys: agentic AI pays off only if tokens cost less than human work
• Arteris: tools need semantic continuity, not just file-format interoperability
• A single respin at advanced nodes can cost hundreds of millions of dollars