Rapidus and Cadence are joining forces to bring agentic AI deeper into advanced-node chip design, integrating Cadence’s InnoStack AI Super Agent into Rapidus’s AI-Agentic Design Solution, known as Raads.
The collaboration pairs Rapidus’s AI-native design and manufacturing ecosystem for advanced-node semiconductors with Cadence’s agentic AI orchestration technology, aiming to help design teams work faster, get to market sooner, and improve design quality across the entire SoC design lifecycle, and the Japanese firm is targeting up to a 2x improvement in design turnaround time compared to traditional workflows.
The push reflects a broader need in AI infrastructure buildout, where next-generation physical AI systems demand tighter, system-level coordination across chip design, manufacturing, packaging, and systems engineering. As part of the announcement, Rapidus is expanding its Raads lineup with two new tools, Raads Navigator and Raads Indicator, built to strengthen quality assurance and help designers work through issues as they come up.
Both are integrated with the Cadence InnoStack AI Super Agent, enabling agentic orchestration across major SoC workflows, automating and coordinating tasks that span everything from early architectural exploration through implementation and signoff. The goal is applying data-driven optimization throughout the design process so teams can better manage the complexity of advanced nodes, improve predictability, and scale productivity in line with Rapidus’s turnaround time targets.
Cadence president and CEO Anirudh Devgan said advanced-node SoC design increasingly calls for AI agents capable of orchestrating entire workflows rather than just optimizing isolated tasks, and framed the integration of InnoStack with Raads as extending agentic AI into a leading-edge semiconductor ecosystem that should help customers speed up design closure and bring advanced silicon to market faster.
On the other hand, Rapidus CEO Dr. Atsuyoshi Koike speaks about the Innovative Integration for Manufacturing facility, which will be completed in due time and will function as an AI-native foundry with AI woven into nearly every stage of semiconductor manufacturing. He described the evolution of Raads alongside Cadence’s InnoStack integration as strengthening that AI-agentic design environment, giving customers a way to manage growing SoC complexity, boost engineering productivity, and get more value out of Rapidus’s advanced process technologies.
He added that the close work with Cadence on InnoStack and its other AI Super Agent tools points to a clear path toward meaningfully cutting design turnaround time and speeding up innovation on Rapidus’s advanced nodes.
The two companies plan to discuss the collaboration further at CadenceLIVE Japan 2026, where Rapidus CEO Dr. Atsuyoshi Koike will deliver a keynote on how Raads is evolving alongside Cadence’s agentic AI and EDA tools to improve efficiency and quality in advanced-node development.
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