How Will AI Affect the Semiconductor Industry? Chip company veterans consider a future “AI wonderland”

How is AI going to impact the business of making chips? A panel of semiconductor-company veterans tackled that question last week at Silicon Catalyst’s annual Semi Industry Forum, held in Menlo Park, Calif., on 9 November. The group speculated about how and when AI will upend the way chips are designed and just how strange a place the coming “AI wonderland” will turn out to be. (Silicon Catalyst is a startup accelerator focused on semiconductor companies.)

“We are entering an era of electronic design creation,” said AMD senior vice president Ivo Bolsens. He predicted that AI will soon be able to flesh out most of a chip’s design from high-level specifications. However, he indicated, AI won’t be able to cover the last mile in the foreseeable future.