HSE MIEM and AlphaCHIP Innovation Centre Sign Cooperation Agreement
The key objectives of the partnership include joint projects in microelectronics and the involvement of company specialists in supervising the research activities of undergraduate and postgraduate students. Plans also focus on the preparation of joint academic publications, the organisation of industrial placements and student internships, and professional development programmes for the company’s specialists.
The HSE Tikhonov Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (MIEM) and the AlphaCHIP Innovation Centre have agreed on a cooperation framework providing for joint activities across a number of areas. The agreement was signed during a round-table discussion attended by members of the management and academic staff of HSE MIEM and AlphaCHIP, as well as by lecturers and students of the institute specialising in microelectronics. The meeting took place at the company’s office in Zelenograd.
The AlphaCHIP Innovation Centre was founded in 1992. The company carries out comprehensive research in the field of IT solutions related to the development of software products for integrated circuit design, including memory compilers, synthesis, modelling, verification, characterisation and testing tools for integrated circuits, as well as the development of their components—standard cell libraries, memory circuits, test chips, complex functional blocks (IP blocks), and custom-designed integrated circuits. The centre is also actively engaged in research and IT development in neural networks and artificial intelligence. At present, AlphaCHIP serves as the lead organisation for the development of an import-independent CAD system for digital integrated circuits. The AlphaCHIP team includes three members of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
‘The AlphaCHIP Innovation Centre is a unique company that combines high-tech research with the highest standards of implementation,’ emphasised Dmitry Kovalenko, Vice Rector of HSE University and Director of MIEM. ‘The company’s developments, including those using artificial intelligence, are at the cutting edge of microelectronics not only in Russia but worldwide. We have identified a number of strategic areas for partnership, each of which I am confident will become a focal point for all MIEM students and staff working in microelectronics.’
To ensure higher-quality training of microelectronics specialists, MIEM students are expected to undertake industrial placements at AlphaCHIP in the following areas: the development of advanced computer-aided design systems for digital integrated circuits; the creation of intelligent design flow elements based on machine learning and big data; the hardware-level implementation of neural networks; and the development of memory compilers and standard cell libraries for microelectronics fabrication plants.
Another important area of cooperation successfully pursued by HSE MIEM and AlphaCHIP is the participation of the company’s specialists in MIEM’s project-based activities. The institute’s lead laboratory, which represents the area of work related to the development of computer-aided design (CAD) systems, currently brings together the activities of MIEM student project teams working on practical tasks in microelectronics. Most of these projects are implemented in close collaboration with industrial partners.
Aleksandr Romanov
Aleksandr Romanov, Leading Research Fellow at the Laboratory of Computer-Aided Design Systems of MIEM, explained: ‘At present, our laboratory serves as a focal point for a number of industrial partners who define the key directions of the projects and final qualification works carried out here. These include topics in medical image processing (Turgenev Orel State University, the Kharkevich Institute for Information Transmission Problems, and other organisations); engineering areas such as RTL development and verification of systems-on-chip (the Yadro workshop); remote testbeds for processor core development (the RISC-V Alliance); logic synthesis (the Ivannikov Institute for System Programming of the Russian Academy of Sciences); text processing and analysis (the All-Russian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, VINITI RAS); and many others.
We have been cooperating with AlphaCHIP for about five years. Most of the tasks we receive from them are research-intensive and relate to the application of artificial intelligence in various fields, such as the development of CAD systems for integrated circuit synthesis, image, video and audio processing, hardware implementation of neural networks, the creation of various specialised datasets, and much more. It is encouraging to see our cooperation reaching a new level.’
In addition, there are plans to involve AlphaCHIP specialists in the research work of undergraduate and postgraduate students in microelectronics, including the supervision of final qualification works, doctoral research, and the publication of joint academic papers. Another area of cooperation is the organisation at MIEM of seminars and lecture courses for AlphaCHIP employees aimed at enhancing their professional skills.
‘Today, the microelectronics industry faces a whole range of fundamental challenges, and the quality and speed with which they are addressed will, without exaggeration, determine the future of the entire IT industry in Russia,’ said Alexander Stempkovskiy, Chief Executive Officer of AlphaCHIP and Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. ‘This is not only about achieving technological independence, in which microelectronics plays a special role, but also about attaining technological leadership for Russia, as we are living in a highly competitive world. AlphaCHIP’s unique developments allow us to say that such goals are achievable. One of the necessary conditions for this is the consolidation of all stakeholders in the industry, and in this context, scientific cooperation between AlphaCHIP and universities such as MIEM, which possess strong intellectual resources among their specialists and enormous student potential, is not merely desirable but essential.’
‘From the perspective of the scientific component, the field of microelectronics in Russia is currently experiencing a second renaissance driven by the need to create fully domestic software capable of supporting modern computer-aided design systems, which themselves must also be domestically developed. This opens up a vast range of challenges for researchers. This applies both to development and design, including of microchips, and to the application of the latest advances in neural networks and artificial intelligence,’ concluded Roman Solovyov, Professor at MIEM, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Deputy CEO for Innovation at AlphaCHIP, and winner of the Sber Scientific Award 2025.
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