Chip Design Automation

From specification to tapeout — accelerated.

Purpose-built AI agents that compress design cycles through automated RTL generation, formal verification, and pipeline-wide data analysis—reducing manual debug and functional verification time.

The Design Verification Challenge

Chip development is being crushed under the weight of manual design & verification — a bottleneck that costs silicon, time, and competitive advantage.

14%
First-Silicon Success Rate
Only 1 in 7 IC/ASIC projects achieve first-silicon success — meaning most chips require costly re-spins before they work as intended.
75%
Projects Behind Schedule
Three out of four projects miss their delivery targets, driven largely by unpredictable verification closure and debug cycles.
60–70%
Engineering Time in Verification
Nearly half of that is pure manual labor — repetitive, error-prone work that AI agents can systematically automate at scale.
2–4×
More Verification Engineers Than Design
Verification teams vastly outnumber design teams, reflecting a structural imbalance that Emergence directly addresses through agentic automation.
End-to-End Flow

From specification to tapeout

Emergence agents work across every stage of the chip design flow — from RTL through physical signoff — automating verification, debug, and closure workflows, with structured data artifacts flowing seamlessly between each stage.

Specs, docs, microarch
↓
RTL Code (VHDL/Verilog)
↓
Gate-level Netlist
↓
DFT Netlist (Scan/BIST)
↓
Placed Design
↓
CTS Design
↓
Routed Design
↓
Verified Layout
↓
GDSII
Specification & Architecture
→
RTL Design
→
Logic Synthesis
→
DFT Insertion
→
Floorplan & Placement
→
Clock Tree Synthesis
→
Routing
→
Physical Signoff
→
Tapeout
Spec Review
RTL Sim, UVM Testbenches, Assertions
Formal Verification
ATPG, Fault Coverage
Post-place STA, Congestion Analysis
CDC Verification, Skew Analysis
Post-route STA, Signal Integrity
DRC, LVS, ERC
Final Signoff Checks
2–3×
Faster time-to-market with Emergence agents
Built on domain-finetuned models
Emergence agents are trained on semiconductor-specific data — not generic LLMs. They understand RTL semantics, timing constraints, and coverage models at a depth that enables real automation, not just assistance. Every artifact produced at each stage feeds forward into a unified knowledge layer, making downstream agents smarter with every run.
Data Fabric

Unified access to all design artifacts

Each stage of the design flow generates critical artifacts — from RTL code and netlists to routed layouts and silicon measurements. Emergence aggregates all of it into a single, queryable fabric: structured design data fused with unstructured engineering knowledge, including specs, waveforms, debug notes, and institutional memory. This unified layer is what powers every agent across the pipeline.

Design Intent
  • Specifications
  • Constraints
  • Assumptions
  • Assertions
Structure
  • RTL hierarchy
  • Netlists
  • Floorplans
  • Scan chains
Behavior
  • Waveforms
  • Coverage data
  • Timing paths
  • Activity factors
Outcomes
  • Failures & bugs
  • ECO history
  • Silicon yield
  • Field reliability
⚡
Institutional memory, systematically captured
Every debug session, every timing closure iteration, every waiver rationale — Emergence indexes and learns from your team's engineering knowledge, so insights are never lost when engineers move on.
Verification & Debug Agents

Purpose-built agents for every workflow

Each agent is trained on domain-specific semiconductor data and optimized for real engineering workflows — not generic AI with a thin veneer.

📄
RTL Code Generation
Generate synthesizable RTL from specifications. Supports Verilog, SystemVerilog, and VHDL with best-practice coding patterns and parameterized templates.
VerilogSystemVerilogVHDL
∿
Functional Verification
Automate UVM testbench generation, stimulus creation, and coverage closure. Identifies coverage holes and auto-generates targeted tests to fill them.
UVMCoverageTestbench
◎
Formal Verification
Generate and validate assertions automatically. Identifies unreachable states, proves properties, and finds counterexamples for logic bugs before simulation.
SVAPSLAssertions
⊙
Timing Closure Debug
Analyze timing violations, suggest ECO fixes, and track closure progress. Integrates with STA tools to automate critical path analysis and iteration.
STASetup/HoldECO
▣
DRC / LVS Check
Automate design rule checking and layout vs schematic verification. Categorizes violations by severity and recommends resolution strategies ranked by impact.
DRCLVSERC
□
Fault Coverage
Optimize ATPG patterns for maximum fault coverage. Analyzes untestable faults and recommends BIST improvements to meet automotive and safety-critical standards.
ATPGScanBIST
Agentic Workflow

From issue to resolution — automatically

Emergence doesn't just surface insights — it executes complete workflows with human-in-the-loop oversight at critical decision points, closing the loop from detection to verified fix.

1
Triage
Automatically categorize and prioritize issues from regression runs, lint, STA, or verification — ranked by severity and timing impact.
2
Evidence
Gather relevant context — waveforms, prior bugs, design history, and related failures — assembled in seconds, not hours.
3
Hypothesis
Generate and rank potential root causes based on design knowledge and historical patterns specific to your IP and process node.
4
Debug
Execute targeted experiments, analyze results, and narrow to root cause — with human approval at critical branch points.
5
Fix & Document
Apply fixes, verify resolution in simulation or signoff, and capture learnings for future reference and model improvement.
Human-in-the-loop
Engineers approve critical decisions. Emergence handles the tedious — humans steer the important.
Closed-loop learning
Every resolved issue improves future triage accuracy and hypothesis quality across your entire design org.
EDA tool integration
Native integrations with leading EDA tools. Fits into your existing flows — no rip-and-replace required.
Get Started

Ready to accelerate your design & verification?

See how Emergence can help your team close timing faster, increase coverage, and reduce manual verification labor — from spec to tapeout.

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Ready to accelerate your semiconductor lifecycle? Let's talk.