EDA Startups At DAC 2025 by Semiconductor Engineering
The 62nd DAC showcased numerous new exhibitors in 2025, including tool and IP providers, design services firms, and component marketplaces. New EDA startups, in particular, had a robust showing, with entrepreneurial engineers seeking to tackle the increasingly complex challenges facing modern chip design with fresh approaches.
AI was a strong theme throughout the show, with companies of all sizes touting the ability for agents to boost design and verification productivity. But beyond that, many of these new companies are focused on enhancing collaboration, enabling engineers and teams across an organization to work together seamlessly and share knowledge in new ways.
ITDA Semiconductor
ITDA Semiconductor makes a drag-and-drop visual designer for SoC system design. Its no-code solution enables power control, clock, and design for test (DFT) systems to be built and optimized from a GUI, then generates all design outputs for synthesis, including RTL, UPF, SDC, and lint waiver files. Cross-checking of a precise software framework and hardware model ensures output accuracy.
ITDA says its approach enables the creation of designs with dozens of power and clock domains for fine-grain clock gating and power management in less than a week, with automatic generation of DFT inserted power controllers, clock controllers, and OCC insertion points. Its DFT tool supports the configuration of any hard IP test structure at the RTL stage, allowing users to define DFT scan chains, access networks, and hierarchy without low-level scripts, and enables GPIOs to be dynamically reconfigured even during test mode.