Chip Estimate

Chip Estimate Corporation operates as a pivotal entity within the electronic design automation (EDA) sector, providing critical integrated chip (IC) project planning solutions. Founded in 2003, initially as Giga Scale Integration Corporation, the company established itself by enabling electronics design teams to forecast essential chip metrics such as die size, power consumption, performance, and cost across various design architectures and silicon process nodes. The firm's president and CEO at the time of its acquisition was Adam Traidman. Chip Estimate secured early backing from ITU Ventures, its founders, and angel investors, raising $1.2 million in December 2003 and a total of $5.5 million over its funding history.

A significant milestone occurred in July 2006 when Chip Estimate acquired the VCX IP database from Beach Solutions, integrating it into its ecosystem. This strategic move enhanced its core offering: the ChipEstimate.com portal. The portal serves as a collaborative hub for over 200 semiconductor IP suppliers and foundries, featuring a catalog of more than 7,000 IP components. This ecosystem allows a global user base of design architects, chip integrators, and technical marketing professionals to perform detailed technical and cost-benefit what-if analyses, thereby optimizing IC design and mitigating project risks. The platform's business model centers on providing this comprehensive planning and IP reuse management environment to a wide range of clients, including fabless semiconductor companies, integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), and ASIC vendors.

The company's primary product, the InCyte Chip Estimator, is delivered in a client-server model and comes in various editions. InCyte Lite targets early-stage project feasibility analysis, while the Enterprise system provides refined chip specifications and customized estimations. This software, coupled with the extensive IP portal, allows users to conduct thorough pre-design evaluations without being IC design experts. On March 7, 2008, Cadence Design Systems, a leader in the EDA industry, acquired Chip Estimate Corporation. This acquisition integrated Chip Estimate's technology and its web portal into Cadence's broader portfolio, aiming to enhance internal IP reuse productivity for customers and complement Cadence's strategy of partnering with the design IP industry.

Keywords: Chip Estimate, electronic design automation, EDA, IC project planning, chip estimation, InCyte, Cadence Design Systems, semiconductor IP portal, Giga Scale Integration, Adam Traidman, IP reuse management, die size prediction, power consumption analysis, chip cost analysis, fabless semiconductor, integrated device manufacturer, what-if analysis, VCX IP database, silicon process nodes, chip design optimization