Synopsis is a leading electronic design automation company specializing in silicon design and verification, as well as software integrity and security.

Their tools are foundational to the creation of modern chips and embedded software, powering everything from smartphones to cars.

Chip design is a deeply complex process, often taking months or years and requiring the coordination of thousands of engineers.

Now, advances in AI are beginning to transform the field by reducing manual effort, accelerating timelines, and unlocking new design possibilities.

Thomas Anderson is the vice president of AI and machine learning at Synopsis,

where he has spent over 15 years. He joins the show to talk with Kevin Ball about the evolving

role of AI and hardware design, the challenges of training models on tacit, undocumented chip

engineering knowledge, the emergence of domain-specific LLMs, and where this

fast-moving field is going next. Kevin Ball, or K-Ball, is the vice president of engineering

at Mento and an independent coach for engineers and engineering leaders. He co-founded and served

a CTO for two companies, founded the San Diego JavaScript Meetup, and

organizes the AI inaction discussion group through latent space. Check out the show notes to follow

Kball on Twitter or LinkedIn or visit his website, k to the show.

Hey, very nice to be here, Kevin.

It's a pleasure.

I'm excited to get to know a little bit more about you and what you're doing at

synopsis.

But let's maybe start with you.

So can you give us just a quick background of who you are and what brings you here today?

Yeah, I'm Thomas Anderson.

I have been a long time, we call them synopsoid.

So synopsis employee, I've been there for more than 15 years.

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