Arm & Synopsys: Data Centre Silicon for Complex AI Workloads

Arm and Synopsys have joined forces to develop the Arm AGI CPU, with the latter delivering a comprehensive suite of solutions spanning its full-stack design portfolio.

The collaboration encompasses electronic design automation (EDA), interface IP and hardware-assisted verification (HAV) capabilities, marking a significant milestone in the development of AI infrastructure silicon.

AGI CPU represents the first phase of the next evolution of the Arm compute platform, which now extends into production silicon products for the first time in the company’s history.

Handling complex AI workloads

Synopsys and Arm's partnership addresses the growing challenges of designing data centre silicon capable of handling increasingly sophisticated AI workloads.

According to Mohamed Awad, Executive Vice President of the Cloud AI Business Unit at Arm, the Arm AGI CPU demonstrates the robustness of their system-on-chip (SoC) design capabilities.

"Designing data centre silicon for increasingly complex AI workloads requires rigorous validation across the full system," says Mohamed.

"The Arm AGI CPU reflects the strength of our SoC design and the effectiveness of our collaboration with Synopsys. Their design, IP and verification solutions supported the development and validation of our breakthrough performance-per-watt chip for next-generation AI infrastructure."

Design solutions for AI workloads

The collaboration between Arm and Synopsys focused on optimising the power, performance and efficiency of the AGI CPU, which is built on Arm Neoverse CSS V3 architecture. Synopsys contributed the industry's broadest portfolio of design solutions for Arm-based architectures.

The portfolio includes Synopsys VCS, Fusion Compiler, IC Validator, PrimeTime and RedHawk-SC. These tools provide support for synthesis, power integrity and reliability analysis, and signoff timing and physical verification.

The solutions support development workflows for complex, high-performance compute platforms, offering advanced scalability and silicon-proven success on advanced nodes to help achieve faster turnaround times.

Ravi Subramanian, Chief Product Management Officer at Synopsys, highlights Arm's ability to deliver the AGI CPU "with such ambition and precision". 

He continues: "This achievement reflects exceptional engineering discipline, and we're proud that Synopsys design, IP and advanced verification solutions played a mission-critical role in delivering this innovation."

Silicon-proven interface IP capabilities

Synopsys and Arm are continuing their work to co-optimise their IP solutions. The silicon-proven IP solutions from Synopsys accelerate interface subsystem development and reduce integration risk.

These complete IP solutions are designed to speed the path to production and improve silicon management, reducing the complexity involved in developing custom silicon for AI applications.

Synopsys' software-defined HAV solutions include emulation and prototyping platforms designed to accelerate verification and software development processes. The Synopsys ZeBu Server 5, when combined with pre-verified Synopsys IP-HAV solutions, delivers the speed, accuracy and fidelity required for bring-up and system functionality validation ahead of silicon production.

What's more, the Synopsys HAPS prototyping systems support extensive software development and system-level performance validation use cases. With broad access to Synopsys Interface Protocol Kits (IPKs) for Synopsys IP titles, these systems accelerate verification timelines and reduce time to market for AI infrastructure components.

Synopsys' support for the Arm Total Design ecosystem continues with the launch of the AGI CPU.

The companies are maintaining their collaboration to accelerate custom silicon development and reduce design complexity for Neoverse Compute Subsystems (CSS), potentially shaping the future landscape of AI infrastructure development.