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
Electronic Design Automation
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
Synopsys Cloud at DAC 2026
Cloud-based EDA has been around for awhile now, so at #DAC2026 I met with Vikram Bhatia, Executive Director of Synopsys Cloud to see what’s new with their offering. His background includes stints at Sun, IBM, Microsoft, HP, Oracle and NetApp. The Synopsys Cloud FlexEDA lets designs teams run their EDA solutions inside of a web browser,… Read More
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
Questa One Updated at DAC 2026
Abhi Kolpekwar, VP & General Manager, Digital Verification Technologies at Siemens EDA met with me at #DAC2026 to provide the big picture on smart verification tools, something they call Questa One. Their verification tools are infused with AI to improve productivity on projects like SoCs, 3D IC and chiplets. Abhi shared… Read More
Hot Chips 2026: Architectures for the Agentic Computing Era
Hot Chips 2026, formally the thirty-eighth Symposium on High Performance Chips, arrives at Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium from August 23 through 25 with a program that captures a decisive shift in computer architecture. Peak arithmetic throughput remains important, but the conference is increasingly about system balance:… Read More
PDF Solutions’ Exensio Was Built for Semiconductor Analytics. The New Exensio Aurora Architecture Is Built for Semiconductor Intelligence.
The semiconductor industry doesn’t have a shortage of data. It has a shortage of ways to turn that data into useful manufacturing insights quickly enough to matter.
That is the problem PDF Solutions’ Exensio solution has addressed for years. Built specifically for semiconductor manufacturing, Exensio brings … Read More
Focusing on the AI Big Picture with Moores Lab AI at DAC 2026
DAC 2026 proved that agentic AI design flows are here to stay. The news was conveyed both by familiar companies who we’ve seen at DAC many times before as well as new entrants to the show and the industry. Many of the solutions that were presented focused on a specific part of the design flow. Others took a broader view of the problem and… Read More
Rise Design Automation at DAC 2026
AI was everywhere at DAC 2026, so I stopped by the booth of Rise Design Automation to chat with Ellie Burns to hear what’s new this year. Ellie shared that Rise DA has added a new AI-powered flow to go from specification to a High Level Synthesis (HLS) model, to a RTL model. The reason for using a HLS model is to gain much more simulation… Read More
ChipAgents Leads the AI Revolution at DAC 2026
I believe this year’s DAC will be viewed as the time and place where EDA experienced a major shift. That is, the shift from the value of tools and methodology to the value of agentic design flows powered by highly trained agents. The design community will clearly need the tools and methodologies that have occupied DAC for years. But… Read More


Intel’s 14A Is Winning the Race Against Defects