Electronic Design

Electronic Design reports that while the United States is pushing to bring semiconductor manufacturing back home, it still faces a shortage of board designers — the engineers who turn chips into working electronics. The article argues that reshoring efforts have focused on fabs and chips while overlooking the printed circuit board design skills needed to complete the domestic electronics supply chain.

A new initiative is combining AI-driven chip design with pilot production lines for III-V compound semiconductors, aiming to speed the path from research to electronics manufacturing. The effort highlights growing investment in advanced semiconductor materials beyond silicon, as demand for AI hardware accelerates and governments and industry seek to strengthen domestic chipmaking capabilities.

Reports describe how artificial intelligence is increasingly used to design computer chips, with AI assisting at every stage of semiconductor development, from electronic design automation software to automated layout and verification. OpenAI's internal chip effort, referred to as Jalapeño, is cited as an example of AI-driven silicon design, marking a shift toward chips largely designed by machines.

Microchip Technology has introduced new 10BASE-T1S chips aimed at zonal vehicle designs, a wiring approach that groups car electronics into zones rather than using traditional point-to-point cabling. The single-pair Ethernet components are intended to help automakers cut cabling weight and simplify in-vehicle networks, part of a broader industry shift toward software-defined, zonal electrical architectures.