Every concept from Days 6-13 — 2.5D/3D packaging, thermal management, power delivery, floorplanning, signal integrity — eventually has to run inside real software before tapeout. Day 14 names the actual tools, what each one specifically does, and how the two major EDA vendors' chiplet platforms compare.
Cadence's Integrity 3D-IC Platform is built as a unified platform for 3D design planning, implementation, and system analysis — spanning custom analog, IC, and board domains in one flow, and integrating with TSMC 3DFabric technologies.
| Tool | What It Analyzes |
|---|---|
| Tempus Timing Signoff (with RAID) | Rapid Automated Inter-Die (RAID) analysis — part of Cadence's 3D STA technology — for accurate multi-tier timing signoff across die boundaries |
| Celsius Thermal Solver | Hierarchical thermal analysis for multi-die stacking, SoCs, and complex 3D ICs (directly relevant to Day 9's thermal challenges) |
| Voltus IC Power Integrity | Thermal, IR drop, and cross-die resistance analysis (directly relevant to Day 10's power delivery challenges) |
Synopsys 3DIC Compiler enables multi-die/advanced package co-design and optimization for both 2.5D and 3D designs, covering analysis-driven feasibility exploration, partitioning, prototyping, and floorplanning across the full stack — the same co-design philosophy covered in Day 11.
3DIC Compiler integrates with RedHawk-SC (power integrity), RedHawk-SC Electrothermal, and HFSS-IC (electromagnetic/RF simulation) to automate multiphysics analysis across thermal, power integrity, signal integrity, and mechanical stress in one coordinated flow — directly covering Days 9, 10, and 12's challenges from a single vendor's tool suite.
Cadence and Synopsys aren't the whole EDA picture. Siemens EDA's Innovator3D IC suite takes a "digital twin" approach — a consolidated cockpit built around a single unified data model (the same unified-data-model concept from Day 11) for design planning, prototyping, and predictive analysis across an entire package assembly. It's composed of several purpose-built pieces:
| Component | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Innovator3D IC Integrator | Constructs the digital twin using the unified data model |
| Innovator3D IC Layout | Package interposer and substrate implementation |
| Innovator3D IC Protocol Analyzer | Chiplet-to-chiplet interface compliance analysis — directly relevant to Day 3's UCIe compliance testing framework |
| Calibre 3DSTACK | Inter-chiplet DRC, LVS, and tapeout sign-off |
| Calibre 3DThermal | Thermal analysis (Day 9) |
| Calibre 3DStress | Mechanical stress analysis (Day 6's CTE mismatch, Day 15's sign-off checklist) |
| Tessent | Test software — directly relevant to Day 8's Known Good Die testing |
Notice how cleanly this maps onto the course: Siemens' own tool suite explicitly names compliance, thermal, mechanical stress, and test as distinct sign-off domains — the exact same categories this course has built up lesson by lesson, now visible as literal product names from a third independent EDA vendor.
| Capability | Cadence | Synopsys | Siemens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform | Integrity 3D-IC | 3DIC Compiler | Innovator3D IC |
| Timing sign-off | Tempus + RAID (3D STA) | Integrated via platform timing flows | Via Aprisa integration |
| Thermal analysis | Celsius Thermal Solver | RedHawk-SC Electrothermal | Calibre 3DThermal |
| Power integrity | Voltus (IR drop, cross-die resistance) | RedHawk-SC | Via Innovator3D IC analysis |
| Signal integrity / EM | Integrated SI/PI/EMI analysis | HFSS-IC | Xpedition Package Designer |
| Mechanical stress | Part of system analysis | Explicit multiphysics coverage | Calibre 3DStress |
| DRC / LVS / tapeout | Via platform sign-off | Via platform sign-off | Calibre 3DSTACK |
| Compliance testing | Not a named standalone product | Not a named standalone product | Innovator3D IC Protocol Analyzer |
Capabilities per Cadence, Synopsys, and Siemens product documentation.
Neither platform exists in isolation from the foundries whose packaging technology they're analyzing. Both Cadence's and Synopsys's platforms are built to work with TSMC 3DFabric technologies, and both increasingly rely on shared interchange formats like TSMC's 3Dblox (Day 11) so a design built around one foundry's chiplets and packaging can still be analyzed and signed off using either vendor's EDA suite — the same multi-foundry interoperability philosophy that makes UCIe itself valuable (Day 3) shows up again at the tooling layer.