Ending an Ugly Chapter in Chip Design

Discussions at chip design conferences rarely get heated. But a year ago at the International Symposium on Physical Design (ISPD), things got out of hand. It was described by observers as a “trainwreck” and an “ambush.” The crux of the clash was whether Google’s AI solution to one of chip design’s thornier problems was really better than those of humans or state-of-the-art algorithms. It pitted established male electronic design automation (EDA) experts against two young female Google computer scientists, and …

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