Chinese EDA startup slashes workforce in half
X-Epic, a Chinese developer of electronic design automation (EDA) tools, is rumoured to be laying off 50% of its workers.
Reporting by the South China Morning Press says the firm is struggling in its mission to make up ground on the big US firms that dominate the EDA space: Cadence, Synopsys and Mentor Graphics (though the latter is now owned by Europe's Siemens).
EDA describes a category of software tools that help engineers to design integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. Since today's semiconductors can have billions of components, these tools provide essential automation.
Clearly, it's important for the Chinese to reduce their dependence on overseas companies in this space. X-Epic was founded in March 2020 and raised USD 121.7 million in its mission to make China more self-reliant – especially in light of the sanctions imposed by the US to prevent China from developing high-performance computing and AI chips.
X-Epic has developed a suite of chip design software EDA tools covering areas such as digital chip verification, hardware simulation, system debugging, and cloud-based verification.
However, The South China Morning Press says progress has been slow for X-Epic and others. It reports that Chinese EDA firms saw their business dip in the first quarter, with the biggest domestic firm – Empyrean – seeing Q1 net profits drop 64 per cent year on year.
