NXP Achieves Greater Scalability and Flexibility with HPC Migration to AWS

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NXP, one of the world’s most advanced chip designers, partnered with SUE to migrate its High Performance Computing (HPC) environment for EDA Design to the AWS cloud. This large-scale transformation involved moving 22 PB of R&D storage from data centers worldwide and optimizing their compute resources for greater efficiency and reduced costs. The migration marked a significant step in NXP’s cloud-first strategy, providing them with the scalability, flexibility, and performance needed to stay ahead in the competitive semiconductor industry.

Customer NXP

Industry High Tech Manufacturing

Hybrid Cloud

Limitations of on-premises infrastructure

The Case

As semiconductor designs grew increasingly complex, NXP faced limitations with its on-premises infrastructure. The static nature of their data centers could not accommodate the agility and scaling potential offered by AWS. To maintain competitiveness and accelerate innovation, NXP recognized the necessity of a more agile and scalable solution.

The situation

NXP’s existing HPC environment, supporting thousands of engineers across multiple global design centers, was hindered by fixed compute capacities and lengthy job queue times. The company’s diverse product portfolio demanded a flexible infrastructure capable of handling varying workloads efficiently. Additionally, the need for improved security and compliance measures further complicated the existing setup.

The impact

The constraints of the on-premises infrastructure led to increased time-to-market and higher operational costs. Engineers spent considerable time managing compute resources instead of focusing on design and innovation. The inability to scale resources dynamically resulted in inefficiencies and limited the company’s ability to respond swiftly to market demands.

Maarten Kelderman, Director R&D IT Design Infrastructure

"With AWS and the support of SUE, we’ve become more flexible and scalable while leveraging the latest technologies and security features."

Resolution

Partnering with SUE, NXP initiated a large-scale migration of its HPC environment to AWS. This involved transferring 22 petabytes of R&D storage data from global data centers and optimizing compute resources for improved efficiency. SUE designed a landing zone using Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP to meet storage performance requirements, enabling dynamic scaling, cutting job wait times by 50% and boosting compute efficiency by 15%. Automated patching mechanisms improved security by minimizing vulnerabilities. By leveraging real-time job data and reconfiguring the LSF job scheduler, SUE helped NXP manage job allocations more effectively. This reduced time-to-market, improved engineering productivity, and provided a scalable, future-proof R&D platform.