Dr. Yervant Zorian Wiki

Yervant Zorian is an Armenian-American electrical engineer best known for pioneering work in design-for-test (DFT) and built-in self-test (BIST) for complex integrated circuits. He serves as Chief Architect & Fellow at Synopsys and President of Synopsys Armenia, where he has helped build one of the country’s flagship high-tech hubs. He has held leadership roles across IEEE test communities and is a prominent voice on multi-die reliability and silicon lifecycle management (SLM).

Early life & education

Zorian earned an M.S. in Computer Engineering (University of Southern California), a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (McGill University), and an MBA (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania).

Career

• AT&T Bell Laboratories — Distinguished Member of Technical Staff; early DFT/BIST contributions for memories and complex SoCs.

• LogicVision — Chief Technologist; advanced embedded test and in-silicon instrumentation.

• Virage Logic — Vice President & Chief Scientist for memory IP and embedded test/repair; later integrated into Synopsys.

• Synopsys — Chief Architect & Fellow; President, Synopsys Armenia, overseeing R&D growth, university programs, and ecosystem initiatives.

Standards & community leadership

Zorian founded and chaired the IEEE 1500 Working Group (embedded-core test standard), served as President of the IEEE Test Technology Technical Council (TTTC), was Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of IEEE Design & Test, and chaired milestone editions of major conferences including DAC and ITC.

Research & technical contributions

Zorian’s work helped define how modern SoCs are tested and maintained across their lifecycle:

• BIST and BISR (built-in self-repair) for embedded memories—boosting yield and reliability at advanced nodes.

• Core-based test architectures and hierarchical methodologies codified in IEEE 1500.

• Silicon lifecycle management for single- and multi-die systems, including health monitoring, analytics, and in-silicon sensors that feed reliability and performance management over a product’s life.

• Advocacy and methods for multi-die/package test, interoperable DFT, and package-level health telemetry in chiplet/UCIe ecosystems.

Publications & patents

Zorian has authored several books and hundreds of refereed papers on test, reliability, and lifecycle analytics, and holds dozens of U.S. patents spanning BIST, memory test/repair, and core-based test architectures.

Awards & honors (selected)

• IEEE Fellow for contributions to BIST of complex devices and systems.

• IEEE TTTC Distinguished Service Award; IEEE CASS Industrial Pioneer Award; IEEE Hans Karlsson Standards Award for leadership of IEEE 1500.

• National honors from Armenia recognizing contributions to nanoscale SoC test solutions.

• IEEE TTTC Lifetime Contribution Award.

Ecosystem building & education

From Yerevan, Zorian has championed industry–university collaboration, STEM outreach, and workforce development. He is Founding President of the AGBU Armenian Virtual College (AVC) and serves on boards including the American University of Armenia. He frequently speaks on how education pipelines, research, and industrial R&D reinforce each other to build resilient tech ecosystems.

Notable quotes

• “Most people think of security as armies and weapons. In the twenty-first century, your strategic industries are part of your shield.”

• “The lack of specialized teachers and labs should not block a student’s curiosity—we can bring the lab to the learner with modern tools.”

• “Engineering isn’t only about finding faults—it’s about designing systems that heal themselves in the field.”

(Quotes attributed to Zorian from interviews and talks; phrasing may vary by source.)

Selected works (sampling)

• Book: Principles of Testing Electronic Systems (with S. Mourad).

• Papers: Foundational work on embedded memory BIST/BISR; methodologies for core-based test reuse; recent articles on multi-die/package test and SLM analytics.

• Standards: Leadership of IEEE 1500 (Standard for Embedded Core Test).

Impact

Zorian’s career traces the evolution from monolithic SoCs to core-based and now multi-die/chiplet systems, with testability and in-silicon instrumentation as the through-line. His technical contributions helped mainstream DFT/BIST and hierarchical core test; his ecosystem work in Armenia illustrates how education + industry + policy can compound to create durable, globally connected technology hubs. Today, as reliability and telemetry become as strategic as performance, his emphasis on lifecycle-aware silicon continues to influence how advanced systems are designed, monitored, and sustained.