At DAC 2026 I had the opportunity to speak with Juan Rey, CTO Siemens EDA about the Calibre product used for IC physical verification, circuit verification, 3D IC and DFM optimization. Juan has been involved with Calibre since 2001, served on the Board of Directors of Silicon Integration Initiative (SI2), on the Executive Technology… Read More
Electronic Design Automation
From Simulation to Deployment: Why Physical AI Matters
Artificial intelligence is moving beyond the screen. The attached presentation describes a shift from systems that generate text, images, and code to systems that can perceive their surroundings and take action. These systems could guide robots, vehicles, factory equipment, medical devices, and critical infrastructure.… Read More
AI-EDA Agents Can Prove Their Value
Before EDA becomes AI-native, focused agents have a window to prove measurable engineering value inside existing design flows.
AI is entering semiconductor engineering from several directions at once.
Some companies are building broad agentic design environments. Others are attacking specific bottlenecks: timing closure,… Read More
Podcast EP370: An Overview of PDF Solution’s New AI Platform and Upcoming CONNECT Event with Kimon W. Michaels
Daniel is joined by Kimon W. Michaels, a prominent figure in the semiconductor industry, currently serving as the Executive Vice President of Products and Solutions at PDF Solutions, Inc. He co-founded the company and has held various leadership roles, including Vice President of Design for Manufacturability since June 2007.… Read More
TSMC OIP Ecosystem Forum 2026: Spotlight on Emerging Technologies
The TSMC OIP Ecosystem Forum highlighted many accomplishments across TSMC’s vast ecosystem. Specific achievements with TSMC as well as collaborative work across several companies were all on display.
And there was an exhibit area where you could meet the companies behind many of these stories and learn more about them.
This … Read More
OpenAI and Synopsys Announce GPT-Synopsys: Why AI-Powered Chip Design Matters
Wow, OpenAI and Synopsys just announced a multiyear partnership to develop GPT-Synopsys, a specialized artificial intelligence model for semiconductor design. The agreement combines OpenAI’s frontier models with Synopsys’ electronic design automation software and engineering expertise. Its ambition is to help engineers… Read More
Quantum Equivalence Checking. Innovation in Verification
Can quantum computing have any relevance to EDA? This month’s paper suggests it might have a role someday, in accelerating one of the most fundamental of EDA algorithms: SAT. Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO and lecturer at Stanford, EE292A)… Read More
Why Advanced Chip Packaging Is Becoming a Design Problem
As chipmakers put more computing power into a single system, the challenge extends beyond making individual chips faster. They must connect multiple chips, memory stacks, power supplies, and sometimes optical components in a compact package. In the2026 TSMC OIP Forum talk “Addressing Inter-Die Complexity for 3D Multi-Die… Read More
Managing Power, Performance and Reliability in the Chiplet Era
Next-gen AI accelerators, high-performance processors, and complex computing architectures depend heavily on advanced packaging. Bringing multiple dies, chiplets, high-bandwidth memory, and advanced interconnects together into a single 2.5D or 3D package yields massive performance gains. However, this design evolution… Read More
Siemens and TSMC push AI deeper into chip design
Siemens and TSMC are expanding their collaboration on semiconductor design tools, with a focus on AI assisted workflows, advanced chip packaging and support for newer manufacturing processes. Their announcement centers on an AI agent intended to find and fix design rule violations: errors that can prevent a chip layout from… Read More


The silent killer of analog reliability: Why SPICE misses floating net