May 19, 2025
Today the Microsoft Build conference kicks off in Seattle, spotlighting AI’s transformative potential to accelerate scientific breakthroughs across industries — including our own. Synopsys was proudly featured as a launch partner for Microsoft's unveiling of the Microsoft Discovery platform. Synopsys is collaborating with Microsoft to harness AI for chip design, developing AI capabilities to help engineering teams innovate faster and manage complexity.
Our collaboration started with Synopsys.ai Copilot, which began with GenAI-powered assistive capabilities and progressed to creative capabilities. Next up is agentic AI. Synopsys SVP of Engineering Excellence Group, Raja Tabet, summarized the significance of the companies’ combined efforts:
"Semiconductor engineering is among the most complex, consequential, and high-stakes scientific endeavors of our time, which makes it an extremely compelling use case for artificial intelligence. By integrating Synopsys' pioneering AI-driven design solutions with Microsoft Discovery, we can realize the promise of agentic AI, re-engineer chip design workflows, supercharge engineering productivity, and accelerate the pace of technology innovation.”
As Synopsys president and CEO, Sassine Ghazi, recently outlined, agentic (or AgentEngineer™) technology will augment, not replace, human engineers. For example, some teams may choose to use their increased productivity to accelerate design cycles while others may choose to use their resources to tackle ever-increasing complexity or build even more products, now possible with the same number of engineers.
In any case, this shift will necessitate fine-tuning workflows, leveraging expert domain knowledge, implementing efficient knowledge management systems, and utilizing advanced cloud computing infrastructure. The AgentEngineer workforce of the future promises to establish a new paradigm for engineering teams to optimize productivity and drive business value — built on foundational AI capabilities achieved through this collaboration.
“Our collaboration with Synopsys is a testament to what’s possible when deep domain expertise meets cutting-edge AI,” said Aseem Datar, VP, Product Innovation at Microsoft. “Together, we’re not just accelerating chip design — we’re redefining what engineering teams can achieve with AI — it’s a net new paradigm. We’re thrilled to help bring Synopsys’ vision to life on Microsoft Discovery.”
Here’s how Synopsys’ AI collaboration with Microsoft started and how it’s going.
Synopsys.ai Copilot’s assistive capabilities are helping democratize access to EDA expertise. Our customers' design teams, working on implementation, verification, and signoff workflows, have leveraged Synopsys.ai Copilot’s knowledge assistance — and have realized up to 10X faster response time for information retrieval and script creation tasks. This is based on work conducted by design engineering teams across all experience levels — from newcomers to seasoned experts. This dramatic acceleration is driven by Synopsys.ai Copilot's ability to provide contextually relevant answers to complex EDA tool and flow questions instantly, eliminating the need to search through extensive documentation or seek expert guidance.
According to industry experts, this technology achieves over 80% syntax accuracy and 70% functional accuracy for most properties — a significant milestone in automated formal verification. This high accuracy rate means engineers spend less time debugging syntax issues and more time focusing on design validation.
Link to Press Release
Today the Microsoft Build conference kicks off in Seattle, spotlighting AI’s transformative potential to accelerate scientific breakthroughs across industries — including our own. Synopsys was proudly featured as a launch partner for Microsoft's unveiling of the Microsoft Discovery platform. Synopsys is collaborating with Microsoft to harness AI for chip design, developing AI capabilities to help engineering teams innovate faster and manage complexity.
Our collaboration started with Synopsys.ai Copilot, which began with GenAI-powered assistive capabilities and progressed to creative capabilities. Next up is agentic AI. Synopsys SVP of Engineering Excellence Group, Raja Tabet, summarized the significance of the companies’ combined efforts:
"Semiconductor engineering is among the most complex, consequential, and high-stakes scientific endeavors of our time, which makes it an extremely compelling use case for artificial intelligence. By integrating Synopsys' pioneering AI-driven design solutions with Microsoft Discovery, we can realize the promise of agentic AI, re-engineer chip design workflows, supercharge engineering productivity, and accelerate the pace of technology innovation.”
As Synopsys president and CEO, Sassine Ghazi, recently outlined, agentic (or AgentEngineer™) technology will augment, not replace, human engineers. For example, some teams may choose to use their increased productivity to accelerate design cycles while others may choose to use their resources to tackle ever-increasing complexity or build even more products, now possible with the same number of engineers.
In any case, this shift will necessitate fine-tuning workflows, leveraging expert domain knowledge, implementing efficient knowledge management systems, and utilizing advanced cloud computing infrastructure. The AgentEngineer workforce of the future promises to establish a new paradigm for engineering teams to optimize productivity and drive business value — built on foundational AI capabilities achieved through this collaboration.
“Our collaboration with Synopsys is a testament to what’s possible when deep domain expertise meets cutting-edge AI,” said Aseem Datar, VP, Product Innovation at Microsoft. “Together, we’re not just accelerating chip design — we’re redefining what engineering teams can achieve with AI — it’s a net new paradigm. We’re thrilled to help bring Synopsys’ vision to life on Microsoft Discovery.”
Here’s how Synopsys’ AI collaboration with Microsoft started and how it’s going.
How it started: Delivering on the promise of GenAI
In late 2023, Synopsys introduced Synopsys.ai Copilot, a breakthrough GenAI capability for chip design powered by Azure OpenAI Service and Azure AI infrastructure, combined with Synopsys’ leading, AI-driven electronic design automation (EDA) workflows. The goal was to boost semiconductor engineering productivity regardless of the designer’s experience level while helping bridge the 15-30% semiconductor industry workforce gap projected by 2030.How it’s going: Flattening EDA learning curves and improving productivity
Today, industry leaders are leveraging Synopsys.ai Copilot to accelerate their chip design efforts and meet shorter development cycles despite increasing design complexity.Synopsys.ai Copilot’s assistive capabilities are helping democratize access to EDA expertise. Our customers' design teams, working on implementation, verification, and signoff workflows, have leveraged Synopsys.ai Copilot’s knowledge assistance — and have realized up to 10X faster response time for information retrieval and script creation tasks. This is based on work conducted by design engineering teams across all experience levels — from newcomers to seasoned experts. This dramatic acceleration is driven by Synopsys.ai Copilot's ability to provide contextually relevant answers to complex EDA tool and flow questions instantly, eliminating the need to search through extensive documentation or seek expert guidance.
Accelerating verification through automatic formal testbench generation
Additionally, Microsoft is leveraging Synopsys.ai Copilot’s creative capabilities to automate formal verification workflows, traditionally one of the more specialized and time-consuming aspects of chip design. Microsoft's silicon team has used this to create formal testbenches, including generating System Verilog Assertions (SVAs), auxiliary logic, TCL scripts, properties and bind files.According to industry experts, this technology achieves over 80% syntax accuracy and 70% functional accuracy for most properties — a significant milestone in automated formal verification. This high accuracy rate means engineers spend less time debugging syntax issues and more time focusing on design validation.
The next wave of AI innovation
In a short period of time, GenAI-capable EDA is proving its value for chip design, laying the foundation for improved productivity, quality, and time to results. The notable benefits observed since launching Synopsys.ai Copilot offer a glimpse of what’s possible. With expanding generative AI capabilities and agentic AI as the next frontier, Synopsys and Microsoft will continue turning potential into value for engineering teams.Link to Press Release