[andy_ppp]

I mean someone else said the software to design chips is 5 figures per seat so probably a multi billion dollar industry.

My guess would be a cloud based chip design software is in the works. This would accelerate AI quite a bit I should think?

[londons_explore]

More like 6 figures per seat...

It's actually a big part of why some silicon companies distribute themselves around timezones - so someone in Texas can fire up the software immediately when someone in the UK finishes work.

It's not unusual to see an 'all engineering' email reminding to you close rather than minimize the software when you go to meetings.

[madengr]

I thought most EDA companies put a stop to that with geographic licensing restrictions.

[baybal2]

And this is the reason some companies have shift work...

But that all means nothing for companies who buy Virtuoso copies from from guys trading WaReZ in pedestrian underpasses in BJ.

A number of quite reputable SoC brands here in the PRD are known to be based on 100% pirated EDAs.

This is not a critique, but a call to think about that a bit.

In China, you can spin-up a microelectronics startup in under $1m, in USA, you will spend $1m to just buy a minimal EDA toolchain for the business.

Allwinner famously started with just $1m in capital, when disgruntled engineers from Actions decided to start their own business.

[TedDoesntTalk]

What is PRD? I’m guessing a country acronym?

[baybal2]

Pearl River Delta