Content summary
    Compared to the previous generation of products, Cadence's new generation of "power twin sword" combination has more than two times the capacity and 1.5 times the speed, enabling designers to rapidly develop advanced chips to meet the needs of generative AI, mobile, automotive, hyperscale and LLM applications;
    Palladium Z3 hardware simulation is equipped with a new self-developed Cadence hardware simulation core processor, which provides faster and more predictive compilation and comprehensive pre-silicon hardware debugging functions.
    The Protium X3 prototype validation platform provides the fastest initial environment for pre-silicon software validation of billion-gate designs.
    A seamlessly integrated process with a unified compiler and common virtual and physical interfaces enables rapid migration of designs from hardware simulation platforms to prototyping platforms.

    Shanghai, China, December 25, 2024 - Cadence Electronics (NASDAQ: CDNS) introduced a new generation of Cadence in the first half of the year. Palladium?  Z3 Emulation and Protium? The X3 FPGA Proof-of-prototype system, a disruptive digital twin platform based on the industry's preeminent Palladium Z2 and Protium X2 systems, is designed to address increasingly complex system and semiconductor designs and accelerate the development of more advanced SOCs. Palladium and Protium systems are industry-acclaimed and trusted by leading AI, automotive, hyperscale, networking and mobile chip companies to deliver higher throughput pre-silicon hardware debugging and pre-silicon software validation. The new Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems, designed specifically for the industry's largest billion gate designs, raise the bar for design excellence to a new level, offering customers more than twice the capacity expansion and 1.5 times the speed increase compared to their predecessors, accelerating the setup of initial environments. And accelerate the overall speed of the product to market.
    "Driven by the demands of a new generation of markets, system and semiconductor innovation is urgent. Against this backdrop, our customers are increasingly challenged to develop chips for the most advanced applications, "said Paul Cunningham, Cadence senior vice president and general manager of Systems and Verification. "The third-generation Palladium and Protium-powered dual-sword systems are at the heart of the Cadence Verification suite and integrate seamlessly with the Verisium AI-driven Verification Platform. The full Cadence validation process provides customers with higher validation throughput, ensuring that they can bring hardware innovations to market faster, while supporting the rapid development of new technologies, such as generative AI."
    The larger capacity of the Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems, which support sizes ranging from 16 million gates to 48 billion gates, enable testing of very large SoCs as a whole (rather than a partial model) to ensure proper functionality and performance. Both systems use NVIDIA BlueField DPU and NVIDIA Quantum InfiniBand network connectors, which not only ensure the consistency of switching between systems, but also enable free conversion between virtual and physical interfaces. Building on the Palladium Z3 system's accelerated hardware validation, the Protium X3 system can quickly deploy relevant models to accelerate software validation by leveraging consistent functionality and interface features.
    "The super-strong Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 are designed to provide fast pre-silicon validation and verification for larger, more complex designs," said Dhiraj Goswami, global vice president of Hardware System Validation Research and Development at Cadence. "We use innovative, custom chip and system architectures. Combined with revolutionary modular compilation and debugging capabilities, we can complete multiple design verification iterations in one day, constantly pushing the limits to meet the needs of our customers, helping them meet their toughest challenges, and constantly introducing a new generation of innovative products."
    "Building efficient, high-performance AI platforms requires mature infrastructure and the integration of a full set of optimized systems and software," said Scot Schultz, senior Director of networking at NVIDIA. "With the acceleration of NVIDIA's networking technology, The next generation of Cadence Palladium and Protium systems push the limits of capacity and performance to help usher in a new era of generative AI computing."
    The Palladium Z3 system offers new domain-specific applications, allowing users to use the most comprehensive portfolio to address increasing system and semiconductor design complexity, improve system-level accuracy, and accelerate low-power verification. Domain-specific applications include the industry's first 4-state hardware simulation application, real modeling application, and dynamic power analysis application.
    "As SOCs become more complex, scalable validation and verification tools are becoming increasingly important for large-scale software testing in front of the chip," said Tran Nguyen, senior director of Design Services at Arm. "Cadence's latest hardware verification platforms and tools are driving innovation in Arm IP design in AI, automotive and data center applications, and we believe our joint customers will benefit from this."
    "To deliver superior computing products, AMD needs a combination of pre-silicon solutions and technologies to meet the challenges of large-scale validation," said Alex Starr, AMD Enterprise researcher. "The Cadence Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems enhance our capabilities in hardware simulation and enterprise prototyping, helping us improve design efficiency and achieve our goal of bringing our products to market. We are also working with Cadence to bring AMD Versal? The Premium VP1902 adaptive SoC is integrated into the Protium X3 system and will be based on AMD EPYC? The processor's host server is integrated into the Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems to increase capacity and achieve higher performance and scalability."
    The Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 systems are part of a broader Cadence validation suite that supports Cadence's Intelligent System Design? Strategy to achieve SoC design excellence. The system has been successfully deployed for a select number of customers and is expected to be fully available in the second quarter of 2025.

About Cadence
    Cadence is a key leader in electronic design with more than 30 years of computing software expertise. Based on the company's Intelligent Systems design strategy, Cadence is committed to providing software, hardware and IP products that help make electronic design concepts a reality. Cadence's customers are among the most innovative companies around the world, delivering outstanding electronics from chips, boards and systems to the most dynamic application markets in consumer electronics, hyperscale computing, 5G communications, automotive, mobile devices, aerospace, industrial and medical. Cadence has been listed on Fortune magazine's 100 Best Companies to Work For for 10 consecutive years.