Perforce and Siemens: A Strategic Partnership for Digital Threads in EDA

On July 9, 2025, Michael Munsey, VP of Semiconductor Industry at Siemens, and Vishal Moondhra, VP of Solutions at Perforce, presented a DACtv session announcing their strategic partnership, as seen in the YouTube video. This collaboration integrates Siemens’ digital twin and digital thread technologies with Perforce’s version control and IP lifecycle management (IPLM) tools, creating an out-of-the-box solution to streamline electronic design automation (EDA) workflows. The partnership addresses the semiconductor industry’s need for enhanced traceability, efficiency, and data management amidst rapidly evolving chip design complexities.

The semiconductor landscape is undergoing a paradigm shift, driven by the increasing complexity of systems-on-chip (SoCs) with billions of transistors and diverse intellectual properties (IPs). Traditional EDA workflows struggle to manage the intricate relationships between design, verification, and requirements data. Siemens, renowned for its digital twin and thread technologies like Celus, and Perforce, a leader in version control with tools like Helix Core and IPLM, have formalized a partnership to tackle these challenges. Initiated over two years and finalized last quarter, this collaboration delivers seamless integrations, enabling designers to track and manage IP versions, requirements, and verification results cohesively.

The partnership’s core innovation lies in its digital thread approach, which ensures traceability across the design lifecycle. As Munsey explained, Siemens’ tools create virtual representations of chips (digital twins), allowing real-time simulation and optimization. Perforce’s IPLM complements this by managing design data, ensuring version control and traceability. For instance, when requirements change, Perforce captures a baseline snapshot of the requirements, linking it to the corresponding design release. This allows engineers to track which requirements drove a specific IP version and correlate it with verification results, forming a complete digital thread. This integration reduces errors, accelerates debug, and improves collaboration across globally distributed teams.

Moondhra elaborated on their data management philosophy, emphasizing that Perforce treats requirements as metadata rather than interpreting them directly. This approach enables flexible integration with Siemens’ tools, allowing designers to “diff” requirements between releases, identify changes, and ensure compliance with initial specifications. The solution supports tools like Celo for design optimization and verification, addressing the industry’s need for scalable workflows. With chip designs now incorporating AI accelerators and chiplet architectures, this partnership ensures EDA tools keep pace with demands for faster time-to-market and higher reliability.

In response to an audience question about linking requirements to design and verification, Moondhra clarified that their system snapshots requirements at each design release, attaching verification results to create a traceable history. This capability is critical for industries like automotive and aerospace, where regulatory compliance and safety standards demand rigorous documentation. The partnership’s out-of-the-box integrations simplify adoption, reducing the need for custom workflows and enabling companies to leverage existing Siemens and Perforce tools seamlessly.

The session highlighted the broader industry trend toward digital transformation in EDA. By combining Siemens’ expertise in digital twins with Perforce’s robust data management, the partnership empowers designers to navigate complex SoC development, from RTL to tape-out. The speakers invited attendees to visit their booths to see the solution in action, emphasizing its practical impact. As the semiconductor market approaches $1 trillion by 2030, this collaboration positions Siemens and Perforce as leaders in enabling efficient, traceable, and scalable EDA workflows, driving innovation in an AI-driven era.

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