eSilicon: Creating a groundbreaking, cloud-native IC design workflow
About eSilicon Corporation
eSilicon Corporation is an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) developer that designs and manufactures high-end semiconductors. Clients for eSilicon circuits and services include businesses in the 5G infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and networking industries.
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Wipro is a leading global IT technology, consulting, and business process services company that specializes in advanced migrations and digital journey management.
eSilicon successfully developed a new workflow for IC design and complex semiconductor engineering processes using Google Cloud and Google Cloud Partners.
Google Cloud results
- Supports rapid growth by migrating two petabytes and 10 billion files in four months
- Streamlines IT management by consolidating 16 systems into one server
- Frees up resources for other business needs by cutting TCO by 20 percent
- Simplifies complex engineering tasks by optimizing workload management
Reduces cost of VM management by 50 to 60 percent
Corporate IT continues to shift away from on-premises infrastructure to cloud computing due to savings, simplified management, and a host of other advantages. As more companies migrate to the cloud, the complexity of apps and workloads is increasing. eSilicon, a semiconductor manufacturer based in San Jose, California, recently set the ambitious goal of migrating its integrated circuit (IC) design and other complex engineering workflows into the cloud.
To support its move to the cloud, eSilicon standardized on Google Cloud and collaborated with a range of partners.
Working together to build a new cloud-native stack
eSilicon knew that it would take a massive effort from experts in various fields to make the idea of cloud-native IC design a reality. The first step was to migrate its data and virtual machine (VM) infrastructure into the cloud. Then partner Elastifile, which is now a part of Google Cloud, assisted with the complex migration of electronic design automation (EDA) storage.
“That initial migration of our network file system (NFS) with Elastifile’s assistance really set this project in motion and made it possible for us to do everything we later set out to do,” says Naidu Annamaneni, Chief Information Officer and VP of Global IT at eSilicon. “If we had not been able to find a cost-effective way to migrate our storage to the cloud, it would have taken us several more years to make the migration happen.”
With the Elastifile NFS solution validation in Google Cloud complete, eSilicon tapped Google Cloud partner Wipro to assist with migrating its VMs to Compute Engine. “Wipro is a partner of Google Cloud and is proud to be a part of this migration engagement—a first for the semiconductor industry,” says Varun Dube, general manager of Google Cloud Ecosystem at Wipro Limited. “We leveraged Wipro Cloud Studio to help eSilicon move its high-performance workloads from on-premises to Google Cloud and help them on their journey to become an agile and cloud-native enterprise.”
“This is when the cost savings really became magnified,” says Naidu. “By optimizing our usage across committed, preemptable, and sustained use cores, we lowered our total cost of ownership by 20 percent compared to our previous on-premises data center costs.”
“One of the great benefits of Google Cloud is that we can co-locate our data centers in optimized settings, from Vietnam and Singapore to Belgium and Italy. We are using that footprint to improve latency management across our apps and engineering workflows.”
—Naidu Annamaneni, Chief Information Officer and VP of Global IT, eSiliconeSilicon was able to take advantage of preemptible virtual machines once it had switched to Google Cloud. Rather than paying a static amount and having similar issues with optimal utilization that came with hybrid or on-premises approaches, the new arrangement meant only paying for compute used.
eSilicon collaborated with Google Cloud Partner Citrix to set up the virtual desktop application framework to allow its engineers to interact with EDA tools for chip design and IP development. Google Cloud Partner Silver Peak managed network optimization of the distribution model, further streamlining collaboration, content delivery, and other elements of IC design for eSilicon’s employees in nine countries.
Accessibility was also bolstered by the global footprint Google Cloud provides. “One of the great benefits of Google Cloud is that we can co-locate our data centers in optimized settings, from Vietnam and Singapore to Belgium and Italy,” says Naidu. “We are using that footprint to improve latency management across our apps and engineering workflows.”
Further, partner Cohesity provided the data management and backup solution, which runs natively on Google Cloud and integrates directly with the Elastifile file storage platform. Silver Peak covered the SD-WAN and WAN optimization elements of the project, and Univa handled job queuing and dispatch requirements. To protect all data and processes, eSilicon brought in another partner for its firewall expertise.
Cloud-native intelligence to improve IC design
Perhaps the greatest advantage eSilicon has experienced since migrating to a cloud-native IC design infrastructure is its newfound ability to build artificial intelligence and machine learning code into workflows.
“We developed a new system that uses AI/ML-based operations for high-performance computing workloads,” says Naidu. “We can now clearly understand compute requirements for each job and tool on a very granular level and use that information to create a frictionless experience for our engineers.”
“Because we now only pay for the compute power and VMs we use, we know we’re not overspending. We have also removed traditional IT restraints with this new Google Cloud stack and the compute power. With Google Cloud, we can scale as needed to address the demands of our growing customer base.”
—Naidu Annamaneni, Chief Information Officer and VP of Global IT, eSiliconWhen eSilicon’s engineers submit jobs, they no longer need to worry about CPU, memory, or other previously unpredictable infrastructure elements. The combination of the ease of working in the cloud along with the actionable insights generated from the new AI/ML system eliminates waste and delays from the semiconductor engineering workflow.
“Because we now only pay for the compute power and VMs we use, we know that we’re not overspending,” says Naidu. “We have also removed traditional IT restraints with this new Google Cloud stack and compute power. With Google Cloud, we can scale as needed to address the demands of our growing customer base.”
“Google Cloud and Google Cloud partners made it possible to consolidate several disparate server configurations into a single server configuration with optimized performance management. It’s the type of IT improvement that any company would want to achieve.”
—Naidu Annamaneni, Chief Information Officer and VP of Global IT, eSiliconSetting a trend for other industries
By successfully managing an entire IC design workflow in the cloud, the eSilicon team views this as proving the value of a cloud migration and the best approach to evolving business-critical systems.
“Companies inside and outside our industry could see value in mimicking our approach: start with a hybrid model, gain trust and prove value on the cloud side, and slowly remove the on-premises infrastructure,” says Naidu. “Google Cloud and Google Cloud Partners made it possible to consolidate several disparate server configuration systems into a single server configuration with optimized performance management. It’s the type of IT improvement that any company would want to achieve.”
With the new workflow running so well, Naidu and his team are now looking to take advantage of other Google Cloud solutions that can be seamlessly provisioned.
“Google Cloud allows us to plug into many other services like machine learning and big data. We’re planning to use as many solutions as it takes to continually improve our product,” says Naidu. “It’s an exciting time for us as we continue growing with the help of Google Cloud and our exceptional partnerships.”
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About eSilicon Corporation
eSilicon Corporation is an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) developer that designs and manufactures high-end semiconductors. Clients for eSilicon circuits and services include businesses in the 5G infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and networking industries.
About Citrix and Wipro
Citrix
Citrix makes the world’s apps and data secure and easy to access, empowering people to work anywhere, at any time. Its complete portfolio of workspace-as-a-service, app delivery, virtualization, mobility, networking, and file-sharing solutions enable IT to ensure critical systems are securely available to users via the cloud or on-premises and across any device or platform.
Wipro
Wipro is a leading global IT technology, consulting, and business process services company that specializes in advanced migrations and digital journey management.