Key facts
- Rapidus and Cadence are partnering to integrate agentic AI into chip design workflows.
- The collaboration aims to accelerate the design of advanced system-on-chip (SoC) products.
- Rapidus is targeting up to a twofold improvement in design turnaround time.
- The integration connects Rapidus's Raads with Cadence's InnoStack AI Super Agent.
- The tools will cover digital implementation and signoff processes for 2nm gate-all-around technology.
Japanese chipmaker Rapidus and U.S. software company Cadence have announced a partnership to integrate agentic artificial intelligence into advanced system-on-chip (SoC) design workflows. The collaboration aims to accelerate chip design processes and enhance engineering productivity, particularly for Rapidus's 2nm gate-all-around technology.
The partnership connects Rapidus's AI-Agentic Design Solutions, known as Raads, with Cadence's InnoStack AI Super Agent. This integration is designed to streamline digital implementation and signoff, with Rapidus targeting an improvement of up to twofold in design turnaround time. The companies are extending their previous work on reference flows and intellectual property to orchestrate workflows across the entire design lifecycle.
Rapidus has introduced Raads Navigator and Raads Indicator to bolster design quality assurance and assist engineers in identifying and resolving design issues. These capabilities will be integrated with the Cadence InnoStack AI Super Agent, which manages specialized agents for tasks ranging from synthesis and physical placement to timing, power, and area optimization, as well as signoff analysis and engineering change order execution.
The commercial objective is to reduce the waiting times, rework, and manual coordination that often occur when design teams transition between architectural targets, implementation constraints, verification results, and signoff requirements. This agentic approach allows for more extensive experimentation than human teams could typically manage, with the underlying results still relying on trusted electronic design automation tools and subject to engineering review.
Rapidus is aiming to strengthen its customer proposition in the advanced foundry market, where technical fabrication alone is insufficient. Customers require comprehensive support, including process design kits, qualified intellectual property, dependable verification, and signoff-ready design flows. Rapidus's IIM-1 facility in Chitose, Hokkaido, began operating its pilot line in April 2025, with mass production targeted for 2027.