Cadence opens the door to chips designed for AI by AI

"The idea of machines that can build even better machines sounds like sci-fi, but the concept is becoming a reality as companies like Cadence tap into generative AI to design and validate next-gen processors that also use AI. In the early days of integrated circuits, chips were designed by hand. In the more than half a century since then, semiconductors have grown so complex and their physical features so small that it's only possible to design chips using other chips."

"The latest example of this is Cadence's ChipStack AI "Super" Agent unveiled on Tuesday. The platform is designed to automate tasks like coding designs, running test benches, creating test plans, and orchestrating regression testing in order to debug and resolve issues as they arise. In other words, Cadence has built an AI code assistant for chip design. But while this might just sound like vibe coding for chips, the company insists the agent has sufficient guardrails to limit hallucinations."

""By leveraging intelligent agents that autonomously call our underlying tools, we are enabling dramatic productivity gains for our customers in critical design and verification tasks while freeing scarce engineering talent to focus on innovation," Cadence CEO Anirudh Devgan said in a canned statement. And if you're worried about this turning into a Terminator-style Skynet situation, don't. While AI may be used to design better AI chips, it's got a long way left to go to automate the rest of the semiconductor supply chain."

Generative AI is being integrated into electronic design automation to accelerate and automate semiconductor design and verification. Cadence's ChipStack AI 'Super' Agent automates coding, test-bench execution, test-plan creation, and regression orchestration to identify and resolve design issues. The platform is organized as multiple virtual-engineer sub-agents handling IP design, verification, sign-off, and debugging. The approach promises productivity gains and allows engineers to focus on higher-value innovation, while guardrails aim to limit hallucinations. Major limitations remain: end-to-end automation of the semiconductor supply chain is still far from achievable.

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