EDA companies, Cadence, Mentor, a Siemens Business, Synopsys and semiconductor equipment industry association, SEMI, have joined forces to jointly develop the SEMI Server Certification protocol, to combat EDA software piracy.

The protocol will define how servers can be identified to ensure that it is authentic and not a cloned version that is using software licenses without permission. Software pirates use virtualisation to clone the machine identifier which manages the license and gain access to additional licenses without paying for them.

“Software piracy is a growing challenge and threatens to stifle innovation for EDA companies and customers alike,” said Nimish Modi, senior vice president of market and business development at Cadence, at the announcement of the collaborative development. Joe Sawicki, executive vice president IC EDA for Mentor, added that it raises the price of products and that this initiative will provide a level playing for all.

Cadence, Mentor and Synopsys are members of the License Management/Anti-Piracy (LMA) Committee within the Electronic System Design Alliance (ESD Alliance).  The committee works with the Centralized Enterprise Licensing User Group (CELUG),  and its members of IT professionals and system design automation software users to address common software licensing issues.

Derek Magill, executive director of HPC Pros. the association for high performance computing professionals, commented: “Deployment of this capability will increase our confidence that all licenses used are fairly acquired, making it harder for unethical competitors to gain competitive advantage through the theft of licenses.”