Chip design software maker Synopsys used this year's Design Automation Conference to push its artificial intelligence pitch, announcing an expanded partnership with Intel's contract manufacturing arm.
According to a Synopsys announcement carried by Yahoo Finance, the company (Nasdaq: SNPS) said at the 2026 DAC Chips to Systems Conference that it has broadened its collaboration with Intel Foundry, including the certification of AI-powered EDA flows on Intel 14A. The stated goal, per the announcement's framing, is to "fast-track customer readiness from silicon to systems."
A separate Synopsys release distributed through Google News described the company as demonstrating "leadership in AI-powered engineering" at the same event.
Some plain-language translation helps here. EDA — electronic design automation — is the software that engineers use to lay out, simulate and verify a chip before anyone tries to manufacture it. Intel Foundry is the business through which Intel makes chips for outside customers rather than only for itself, and Intel 14A refers to one of its manufacturing processes. "Certification" in this world means the toolmaker and the factory have validated that designs produced with those tools will actually work on that specific production line.
That handshake matters because chip designers generally cannot commit to a manufacturing partner until the design software is proven against it. Certified flows remove a large source of risk and delay for any company weighing whether to build its next processor at Intel instead of a rival foundry.
The two announcements are company statements made at an industry conference, not independent assessments, and neither source item provides pricing, customer names or timelines for shipping silicon.
Why it matters: Intel is trying to convince the world's chip designers to manufacture with it, and getting the industry's dominant design-software vendor to certify AI-assisted tools on its newest process is one of the practical steps that makes that choice possible.