At the 2026 Chiplet Summit, Synopsys presented a bold vision for the future of semiconductor innovation: AI-driven multi-die design powered by agentic intelligence. As the semiconductor industry shifts rapidly toward chiplet-based architectures and 3D stacking, the complexity of design, verification, and system integration… Read More
Electronic Design Automation
An Agentic Formal Verifier. Innovation in Verification
In a break from our academic-centric picks, here we look at an agentic verification flow developed within a semiconductor company. Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO and lecturer at Stanford, EE292A) and I continue our series on research ideas.… Read More
Siemens to Deliver Industry-Leading PCB Test Engineering Solutions
Siemens has strengthened its position in EDA and manufacturing by acquiring ASTER Technologies, a specialist in test and reliability solutions for printed circuit boards. The acquisition represents a strategic step in Siemens’ broader vision to deliver a fully integrated, end-to-end digital thread for electronics design,… Read More
Agentic EDA Panel Review Suggests Promise and Near-Term Guidance
NetApp recently hosted a webinar on Agentic AI as the future for EDA and implications for infrastructure. Good list of panelists including Mahesh Turaga (VP Cadence Cloud) with an intro preso on infrastructure and agentic AI at Cadence, then our own Dan Nenni (Mr. SemiWiki) moderating, Khaled Heloue (Fellow AMD, CAD CAD/Methodology/AI),… Read More
Hardware is the Center of the Universe (Again)
The 40-Year Evolution of Hardware-Assisted Verification — From In-Circuit Emulation to AI-Era Full-Stack Validation
For more than a decade, Hardware-Assisted Verification platforms have been the centerpiece of the verification toolbox. Today, no serious semiconductor program reaches tapeout without emulation or FPGA-prototyping… Read More
Smarter ECOs: Inside Easy-Logic’s ASIC Optimization Engine
What is the 3nm Pessimism Wall and Why is it An Economic Crisis?
Chip design is getting more difficult as technology advances. Everyone knows that. A lot of the discussion around these issues tends to focus on the demands posed by massive AI workloads and the challenges of shifting to heterogeneous multi-die design. While these create real problems, there is an underlying effect that is making… Read More
CEO Interview with Aftkhar Aslam of yieldWerx
Aftkhar Aslam is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of yieldWerx and a semiconductor industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience spanning manufacturing, test engineering, yield management, IP strategy, and enterprise digital transformation.
Under his leadership, yieldWerx has become a trusted data and… Read More
Custom IC Design using Additive Learning
Custom IC design has demanding technical requirements to produce accurate simulation results for timing and power analysis in the shortest run times. EDA vendors have been rushing to use AI and ML technology to meet these analysis requirements. I attended a webinar from Siemens on accelerating iterative design cycles with Solido… Read More
Smarter IC Layout Parasitic Analysis
IC layout parasitics dominate the performance of custom digital, analog and mixed-signal designs, so the challenge becomes how to identify the root causes and to quantify the effects of parasitics during early design stages. The old method of iterating between layout, extraction, SPICE simulation, followed by manual debug… Read More


Musk’s Orbital Compute Vision: TERAFAB and the End of the Terrestrial Data Center