Webinar: Achieve Full Flow and Resource Management Visibility to Optimize Cost and Sustainability with Innova

The lifecycle for complex chip design includes many factors. Traditional systems focus on design tasks, associated schedules and manufacturing logistics. While these are important aspects of the project there is a lot more that can be measured, predicted and tracked. Taking a more holistic view of the project opens new opportunities to optimize not only cost and schedule, but sustainability and ecological impact. This expanded view of the chip lifecycle will help to manage critical trends such as water consumption and CO2 emissions.

Innova presented a comprehensive approach to achieve these results in a recent webinar. A replay link is coming but first let’s take a high-level look at how to achieve full flow and resource management visibility to optimize cost and sustainability with Innova.

You can access the webinar replay here.

The Webinar Presenter

Dr. Chouki Aktouf presented the webinar. He is a co-founder of Innova Advanced Technologies. Prior to Innova, he founded Defacto in 2003. Before that, Dr. Aktouf was an associate professor of Computer Science at the University of Grenoble – France and leader of a dependability research group. He holds a PhD in Electric Engineering from Grenoble University.

Chouki has a relaxed and easy-going presentation style. He covers a lot of important material clearly and concisely. You will learn a lot from him during this webinar, which is 30 minutes in length followed by a very useful 10-minute Q&A session.

Some Webinar Details

Chouki presents both the software and methodology that are available to achieve big picture management of complex chip design projects and the broader benefits of cost and sustainability that result. At a high level, Innova covers predicting, reporting, optimization and needs for EDA tool licenses, computing server resources, and IP cores which are involved in complex chip design projects

You can learn more about Innova in this informative 2025 Outlook piece on SemiWiki.

Many benefits of the Innova PDM (Project & Design Management) tool are discussed. In the area of cost reduction, there are two aspects to consider:

Design Flow Management

• Report optimal usage scenarios per design project, design flow, etc.
• Predict Design Resources
• Optimize the usage of computing resources

Design Resource Management

• Optimize jobs scheduling with the available design resources
• Make cost-effective the debug, reuse and tracking of complex design flows
• Correlate between flow execution steps and design resources
• Track and manage real-time user-defined alarms

The figure below summarizes the data flow of this approach, which aims to reduce cost by 15 to 30 percent compared to ad-hoc methods.

Many details are discussed on how to integrate the Innova tools into any design flow. Both GUI and script-based approaches are covered. The use of machine learning to enhance predictability is also covered.

Chouki also discusses in detail how the visibility provided by the Innova flow can help with sustainability considerations, such as carbon footprint. An expanded view of the project is used, which includes aspects such as transportation logistics. The goal is to develop an eco-friendly design footprint.

To illustrate the process, here are some of the items considered. Chouki does a great job explaining how all this works.

Metrics

• Flow complexity
• Design complexity
• Resource complexity

Ecological Impact

• Gas emission kgCO2eg
• Use of minerals and fossil resources (kgSbeg)
• Consumption of primary energy (MJ)

Configuration Recommendation

• Flow
• Cluster selection according to ecological impact

Chouki illustrates the impact of this type of capability by examining two equivalent design flows with the tool. It turns out the flow that looks more complex on the surface is actually more efficient and significantly more eco-friendly. He points out there is no way to know this without using the kind of detailed management and analysis provided by Innova.

To Learn More

A capability that both optimizes cost and optimizes the eco footprint of a design is critically important for the health of the company and the planet. Innova provides a complete solution, and this webinar explains it very well. I highly recommend you watch the replay. You can access the webinar replay here. And that’s how to achieve full flow and resource management visibility to optimize cost and sustainability with Innova.

Also Read:

Innova at the 2024 Design Automation Conference

WEBINAR: Reconcile Design Cost Reduction & Eco-design Criteria for Complex Chip Design Projects

2025 Outlook with Dr. Chouki Aktouf of Innova