Introducing BUGGED OUT — A new bite-sized podcast for verification engineers

I’m excited to share something I’ve been working on for a while — my new podcast, BUGGED OUT.

If you’ve been in verification long enough, you know the truth: Every chip has bugs. The real challenge — and the real creativity — is in how we find and fix them quickly. This podcast is about that work.

Each episode is 10–15 minutes, designed for a commute, a coffee break, or that moment when your simulation farm is spinning and you finally have a minute to think. I sit down with engineers, architects, and researchers who are reshaping verification — and we talk honestly about what’s changing, what’s working, and what still keeps teams up at night.

No slides.
No corporate polish.
Just real conversations — and a few good “in the trenches” stories.

One of the first conversations I’m sharing is with Jake Wiltgen, Director of IC Verification Solutions at Siemens EDA. And this one is special — because DFT is having a moment.

In the episode, Jake and I talk about:

• How he actually end up in the world of Design-for-Test
• How to explains DFT to someone with no background — in a few sentences
• Why DFT sign-off is increasingly becoming a critical bottleneck at tape-out
• And how solutions like Questa One aim to reduce that friction and accelerate closure

But we didn’t stop at tools.

We dug into the mega-trends reshaping test:

• Technology scaling → smaller geometries, more failure modes
• Design scaling → more logic, more compression, tighter margins
• System scaling → devices that must work across years, temperatures, mission profiles

And we talked about reliability, aging silicon, in-system test, and how car ECUs, data center accelerators, and safety-critical compute are changing test strategy.

And finally, we ended with what I think is the real heart of the conversation:

What’s the right balance between automation and engineering intuition?

Tools are improving — dramatically. But verification is still a human craft.
And that’s not changing.

Listen to the Conversation

• BUGGED OUT with Jacob Wiltgen
  Now available on the Verification Academy
  (Additional platforms coming as episodes roll out.)

Why I Started Bugged Out

I’ve spent decades studying verification practices across the industry. I’ve seen methodologies evolve, tools transform, and problem sizes explode.

And through all of it, one thing has always been true:
The breakthroughs come from people.

This podcast is about those people — and the way they think.

If one episode helps someone reduce debug time, rethink a workflow bottleneck, or simply feel more confident in how they approach verification — then Bugged Out is doing what it’s meant todo.
Thanks for listening — more great conversations are coming.

-Harry