Breaking through the bottleneck of "China's core" cannot be achieved without the breakthrough of domestic EDA.
The chip industry always tugs at the sensitive nerves of the Internet.
The international situation is becoming increasingly complex, tearing apart the global chip industry chain. Especially as November 1, 2025 approaches, the game around key software has become a new focus.
Among them, the most eye - catching is the EDA design software.
EDA, known as the mother of chips, has long been dominated by overseas giants in the market, becoming the weakest link in the substitution of domestic chips. At this special moment, the outside world has shown more concerns.
So, how far has domestic EDA come?
Three Overseas Giants Have Long Dominated the Market
A craftsman who wishes to do his work well must first sharpen his tools.
The full name of EDA is Electronic Design Automation, which means electronic design automation. It is an essential auxiliary tool for chip design.
Tang Zhimin, the dean of the School of Computing and Microelectronics at Shenzhen Technology University, said: "In the semiconductor industry chain, the in - depth integration of design and manufacturing is the key to producing leading products, and EDA design software is the core link connecting the two."
The importance of EDA is self - evident.
An industry insider told Zinc Scale: "In the early years, there were only a few, a dozen, or dozens of transistors on the circuit board, and hand - drawing the layout was still manageable. Now there are hundreds of billions. Without EDA, it's like trying to make a meal without rice."
The above - mentioned industry insider further said that EDA is to chips what CAD is to architecture, InShot is to short - videos, Photoshop is to art, and Unity is to games. Although it is unassuming, it is indispensable.
The problem is that the EDA market has always been dominated by three American companies: Synopsys, Cadence, and Siemens EDA.
Data from TrendForce shows that in 2024, the global market shares of Synopsys, Cadence, and Siemens EDA were 31%, 30%, and 13% respectively, accounting for a total of 74% of the global market share.
Source: TrendForce
In China, the three EDA giants also account for more than 70% of the market share.
This is all because of their more profound historical precipitation. In the mid - 1980s, the prototypes of the three EDA giants emerged. At that time, domestic EDA was just starting. It wasn't until 1993 that the first domestic EDA, the "Panda System," filled the gap.
Despite lagging behind the international advanced level by several years, the "Panda System" was still highly anticipated.
Jicai.com said: "Since the price of the 'Panda System' was only 1/10 of similar products, American chip manufacturers once chose the 'Panda System,' which caused a great stir in the market."
Unfortunately, the three EDA giants then entered the Chinese market.
Relying on strategies such as free giveaways and multi - party cooperation, combined with their first - mover advantage in technology, they occupied the domestic market at once. Domestic EDAs such as the "Panda System" eventually became marginalized.
A software engineer told Zinc Scale: "Any software has a characteristic: 'It's not afraid of being unusable, but afraid of no one using it.' As long as you continuously accumulate and iterate to create a mature ecosystem, the market won't give new players a chance."
As a result, EDA has become the biggest weakness in the domestic substitution of chips.
EDA Design Process
In recent years, technology companies in fields such as mobile phones, automobiles, and the Internet have embarked on the path of self - developed chips. Xiaomi has self - developed the SoC chip Xuanjie O1, Li Auto has self - developed the intelligent driving chip M100, Baidu has self - developed the cloud - based full - function AI chip Kunlun Chip, and Alibaba has self - developed the AI inference computing chip li - NPU...
Consequently, the demand for EDA has been rising.
Data from the China Semiconductor Industry Association shows that the chip industry chain is divided into three links: design, manufacturing, and packaging and testing. Both the design and manufacturing links require the use of EDA, with a combined proportion of more than 75%.
This means that if the three EDA giants no longer grant authorization, the industry may be "strangled by the neck."
Yuanchuan Technology Review said: "Once EDA manufacturers stop authorizing chip design companies, it means that the latter cannot obtain the latest PDK from the foundry, and there is no way to talk about design and tape - out based on new processes."
Against this background, domestic EDA has a heavier burden on its shoulders.
Overtaking on a Curve Is Not a Pipe Dream
In fact, domestic EDA has not just sat idle but has been tenaciously growing.
One path is to find a differentiated living space.
The technological successor of the "Panda System" is Empyrean Technology. It found a breakthrough in the liquid crystal display field and became a globally well - known supplier of full - process FPD (flat panel) design solutions. One out of every three smartphone screen driver chips in the world is designed by Empyrean Technology's EDA.
After establishing a foothold, it expanded its boundaries to the core area of chip design.
The financial report shows that the penetration rate of Empyrean Technology's full - process tools in domestic fabless enterprises has reached 35%, an increase of 22 percentage points compared with 2020. Among them, the procurement amount of leading customers such as HiSilicon and ZTE Microelectronics accounts for more than 40%.
Empyrean Technology ranks second only to the three giants. Source: Central China Securities Research Institute
Another path is to focus on the high - end market.
Most companies do not have the full - process strength of Empyrean Technology. They choose to deeply cultivate specific markets. A representative company is ProPlus Design Solutions, which focuses on the high - end market of device modeling and circuit simulation and helps achieve import substitution for 5G base station chips.
It is worth mentioning that ProPlus Design Solutions' NanoSpice high - precision simulator has passed the Samsung 3nm GAA process certification and is on par with Synopsys and Cadence, becoming one of the only three players in the world.
In addition, ProPlus Design Solutions acquired RisenChip (an IP supplier) and NanoPower (a power management IP), intending to shorten the cycle from chip design, verification, to market launch through the "EDA + IP core" strategy and iterate into a one - stop chip design solution, thereby enhancing its market competitiveness.
It should be noted that in recent years, uncertainties have increased sharply. The acceleration of domestic EDA is no longer an option but a must - answer question. To gain autonomy in key software in the chip field, a number of new forces have emerged in the track.
Data from TechNode shows that the number of companies researching and developing EDA software in China far exceeds the total number in other regions of the world, with at least 60 such companies.
Among them, Qiyunfang, which recently unveiled its mystery, can be regarded as the leader among the new forces.
Not long ago, Qiyunfang officially announced two EDA design software products for schematics and PCBs. The product performance has been improved by 30% compared with the industry benchmark, the product hardware development cycle can be shortened by 40%, and the success rate of the first - version intelligent assisted design has been increased by 30%. More than 20,000 engineers have used them.
More importantly, Qiyunfang has carried out subversive innovation.
Serial operation is the basic concept of overseas EDA, which has always had a profound impact on the development of the entire industry. Qiyunfang did not follow the rules but adopted the strategy of parallel operation and made great efforts in collaborative design. The schematic design software supports 100 people to design online and in parallel at the same time, while the PCB design software supports 20 people to collaborate online at the same time.
Huanchen Technology said: "In traditional perception, late - developing countries can only 'catch up step by step' in high - tech fields. However, Qiyunfang has directly achieved 'performance overtaking.' This breakthrough is not simply 'domestic substitution,' but by reconstructing algorithms and innovating architectures, it has established a new technical coordinate system in core indicators such as design efficiency and compatibility."
As a result, domestic EDA has evolved from a follower of international standards to a definer of international standards, and thus has the possibility of overtaking on a curve.
In fact, in the wave of AI, the possibility of domestic EDA overtaking on a curve is even greater.
The large - scale model can predict the performance of a chip when running a specific application program, thereby reducing the repetitive work of EDA, avoiding unnecessary errors, and greatly improving work efficiency.
Semiconductor Industry Insights said: "In the chip placement and routing problem, traditional EDA algorithms can reasonably arrange the positions of various components according to the functional requirements and performance indicators of the chip and plan the optimal circuit connection lines. Now, optimization methods based on machine learning can find solutions that are better or faster than traditional EDA algorithms."
More crucially, in terms of AI - enabled EDA, domestic and foreign companies are on the same starting line. Whoever can find the multiplier of efficiency first will win in future competition.
For example, ProPlus Design Solutions is developing a device modeling AI system based on the Transformer architecture, aiming to shorten the modeling time from the traditional two weeks to 24 hours.
In general, the EDA track is facing major changes. Ensuring self - sufficiency has become an urgent task for the industry. Domestic established EDAs and new EDA forces are working together to overcome difficulties and strive to complete the last piece of the puzzle in domestic chip substitution.
So, one day, "Chinese chips" will no longer be controlled by others.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Zinc Scale" (ID: znkedu). Author: Chen Dengxin, Editor: Li Jinlin. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.