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A chip-design workstation in a bright lab with its main screen caught mid-update as an automated process proposes a schematic change, a progress indicator showing the edit still in motion

AI Is Now Designing Meaningful Parts of the Chips That Will Run AI

Every accelerator in this cohort was designed by engineers using software tools. In 2026, those tools crossed from assisting engineers to running large parts of the design process autonomously — and Synopsys is at the center of it.

By Brecht Corbeel · August 10, 2026 · 5 min read

Two workstation screens on a bright desk, one showing a chip layout and the other a thermal-stress simulation of the same package, a cursor caught mid-drag connecting a data link between them

AI Hardware & Semiconductors

Why Synopsys Paid $35 Billion to Add Physics Simulation to Chip Design

Designing a chip's circuits and predicting how it will physically behave — heat, stress, electromagnetic interference — were historically separate disciplines, separate software, separate companies. Synopsys just spent $35 billion to make them one.

By Brecht Corbeel · August 10, 2026 · 4 min read

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