Frontier models (Claude, etc.) are very powerful but becoming expensive for high token counts. Methods to exploit a mix of models, including local open-weight models, are attracting attention. Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO and lecturer… Read More
Artificial Intelligence
Podcast EP363: The Impact of an AI Factory on Production Deployment with NeuReality’s Moshe Tanach
Daniel is joined by Moshe Tanach, co-founder and CEO of NeuReality. Prior to founding the company, he held senior engineering leadership roles at Marvell and Intel, where he led complex wireless and networking products from architecture through mass production. He also served as AVP of R&D at DesignArt Networks (later acquired… Read More
Will Agentic AI Help the Open-Source EDA Market?
Agentic artificial intelligence is likely to give the open-source electronic design automation market a meaningful boost. Its biggest contribution will not be the immediate replacement of established commercial platforms from Cadence, Synopsys, or Siemens. Instead, agentic AI can make open-source tools easier to use, … Read More
AI-designed Chip Points Toward a Faster Future for Custom Silicon
Architect Labs says it has created Redwood, an AI accelerator designed and verified almost entirely by artificial intelligence in less than two weeks. If independently validated and successfully translated from a programmable prototype into manufactured silicon, the project could represent a major change in how computer… Read More
Bronco AI at DAC 2026, What a Difference a Year Makes
During my time at DAC 2026 I felt like I was attending two events. One was the traditional DAC where approaches to designing complex chips using the best tools and methodologies were the focus. There was another focus for the conference. This one was like the traditional DAC with an important difference. Here, the discussion centered… Read More
Optimizing for Thermoelastic in Package and PCB Design from the Outset
Signoff-quality design tools are mandatory for signoff, though not so good for early design exploration. Signoff demands high accuracy in design description and high precision in analysis. The first requirement can’t be met early in design where architecture decisions are still in flux, and the second depends on very detailed… Read More
Avestra: Agentic AI for SystemVerilog Assertion Generation
Modern ASIC, SoC, CPU, and GPU development depends on verification processes that detect subtle functional defects before tapeout. SystemVerilog Assertions (SVA) are particularly important because they encode temporal design intent: how signals, states, and transactions must behave across clock cycles. Unlike conventional… Read More
Hot Chips: Evolving Memory Architectures for Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence performance is increasingly constrained by memory rather than arithmetic throughput. Scaling laws show that model quality improves when parameter count, training data, and compute grow together, but this balance fails when processors cannot obtain operands quickly enough. Contemporary accelerators… Read More
How TSMC Is Wiring the AI Era With Light
TSMC’s photonics strategy is centered on integrating optical input-output with advanced logic, rather than selling conventional optical transceivers as standalone products. The company is developing a silicon-photonics foundry platform and a packaging architecture called TSMC-COUPE, or Compact Universal Photonic … Read More
WEBINAR: Agentrys Shows You How to Build a Multi-Agent System in 30 Minutes
Agentrys believes that a purpose-built multi-agent system for chip design shouldn’t be a quarter-long project. Agentic AI systems are becoming quite popular to cut design time and increase quality for complex chip design projects. The challenge is finding the right agentic flow for a particular application. There are… Read More


ASML and TSMC’s 12-Inch Photomask Initiative: Technical Significance