FutureCast 2026 — Part 2: Specialization, power, and intelligent verification
Holiday special edition of Bugged Out
In Part 2 of the special FutureCast 2026 holiday series, Harry Foster continues exploring how the semiconductor landscape is rapidly changing — and why the next phase of innovation will be shaped as much by constraints as by breakthroughs.
This episode examines the forces pushing systems toward specialization, the growing challenge of data movement, and the rising impact of power, security, and runtime behavior on system correctness. Harry also discusses how verification teams can scale as complexity expands and why agentic AI will become essential to automation and workflow orchestration.
Key Discussion Points:
- Why specialization becomes unavoidable as AI, robotics, and domain-specific compute accelerate
- The growing impact of data movement bottlenecks and memory-centric architectures
- How HBM, near-memory compute, analog accelerators, and photonics break legacy abstractions
- Why physical effects such as thermals and statistical variation now influence functional correctness
- How verification evolves across cross-domain workflows without overwhelming engineering teams
- The role of hybrid digital twins in unifying logic, performance, physical behavior, and verification intent
- Why power ceilings, security boundaries, and model drift become architectural concerns
- How runtime safety, isolation, and lifecycle monitoring reshape verification planning
- Why agentic AI shifts from tool enhancement to workflow orchestration and continuous validation
- Predictions for 2026: AI-assisted verification becomes standard, and data movement emerges as a verification challenge
- Predictions for 2030: thermal- and statistical-aware verification become standard practice, and agentic AI drives verification infrastructure while curated chiplet marketplaces begin to form
To dive deeper into these themes, you can also download the companion white paper https://resources.sw.siemens.com/en-US/white-paper-the-future-of-semiconductors-engineering-in-the-convergence-era/
Bugged Out
Every chip has bugs — the real question is how fast you can find and fix them. Bugged Out is the bite-sized podcast where we shine a light on the art (and science) of functional verification.
In just 10–15 minutes per episode, host Harry Foster, Chief Scientist, Verification, Siemens EDA, sits down with leading innovators, engineers, and researchers to talk about what’s shaping the future of verification — from AI-driven tools to design-for-test, coverage closure, reliability, and more. Expect candid conversations, practical insights, and a few “war stories” from the trenches of debug.
Whether you’re a verification engineer, a design lead, or simply curious about how we “get the bugs out” of the chips that power our world, Bugged Out delivers focused, informative conversations designed to fit your busy schedule.
Listen on:
