The semiconductor industry is entering a transformative era, and few trends are generating more discussion or confusion than Agentic AI. From autonomous design exploration to next-generation verification strategies, Agentic AI promises dramatic changes in how chips are conceived, validated, and delivered. But as with … Read More
Artificial Intelligence
I Have Seen the Future with ChipAgents Autonomous Root Cause Analysis
I have seen a lot of EDA tool demos in my time. More than I want to admit. The perceived quality of the demo usually came down to a combination of the speed of the tool, quality of results and the ease of navigating through the graphical user interface. For the last item, how easy the interface was on the eyes, how clear were the relationships… Read More
Arm FCSA and the Journey to Standardizing Open Chiplet-Based Design
I have written before about an inter-chiplet communication challenge to realizing the dream of multi-die designs built around open-market chiplets. Still a worthy dream but it’s going to take a journey to get there. Arm recently donated their Foundation Chiplet System Architecture (FCSA) to the Open Compute Project (OCP) as… Read More
Adding Expertise to GenAI: An Insightful Study on Fine-Tuning
I wrote earlier about how deep expertise, say for high-quality RTL design or verification, must be extracted from in-house know-how and datasets. In general, such methods start with one of many possible pre-trained models (GPT, Llama, Gemini, etc.). To this consultants or in-house teams add fine-tuning training, initially… Read More
Lessons from the DeepChip Wars: What a Decade-old Debate Teaches Us About Tech Evolution
The competitive landscape of hardware-assisted verification (HAV) has evolved dramatically over the past decade. The strategic drivers that once defined the market have shifted in step with the rapidly changing dynamics of semiconductor design.
Design complexity has soared, with modern SoCs now integrating tens of billions… Read More
TSMC Kumamoto: Pioneering Japan’s Semiconductor Revival
In the lush landscapes of Kumamoto Prefecture, on Japan’s Kyushu Island, TSMC is etching a new chapter in global chip production. The TSMC Kumamoto facility, operationalized through its wholly-owned subsidiary Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM), represents the Taiwanese giant’s bold foray… Read More
AI RTL Generation versus AI RTL Verification
I should admit up front that I don’t have a scientific answer to this comparison, but I do have a reasonably informed gut feel, at least for the near-term. The reason I ask the question is that automated RTL generation grabs headlines with visions of designing chips through natural language prompts, making design widely accessible.… Read More
A Compelling Differentiator in OEM Product Design
Jennifer, an OEM hardware designer, is planning a product around a microcontroller she thinks will meet her needs and wants to supply power from a 3V coin cell battery which she must connect though a boost controller. Jennifer searches a rough description of the part she needs, generating a long list of component manufacturers … Read More
Synopsys and NVIDIA Forge AI Powered Future for Chip Design and Multiphysics Simulation
In a landmark announcement at NVIDIA’s GTC Washington, D.C. conference Synopsys unveiled deepened collaborations with NVIDIA to revolutionize semiconductor design and engineering through agentic AI, GPU-accelerated computing, and AI-driven physics simulations. This partnership, building on over three decades… Read More
Intel to Compete with Broadcom and Marvell in the Lucrative ASIC Business
The second chapter of our book “Fabless: The Transformation of Semiconductor Industry” describes the ASIC business and how important it is. That was more than 10 years ago and the ASIC business is still at the forefront of the Semiconductor industry and is a key enabler of the AI revolution we are experiencing today.
First let’s … Read More


AI RTL Generation versus AI RTL Verification