News & Talks
Updates from the Lab
Follow our latest milestones, awards, and invited talks. We share short updates as soon as results are ready for the community.
- Distinguished Lecture
IEEE SSCS Distinguished Lecture at KAIST: Rethinking Chip Design in the Age of AI
Prof. Mehdi Saligane delivered the IEEE SSCS distinguished lecture "Rethinking Chip Design in the Age of AI" at KAIST, exploring how AI is reshaping chip design from two complementary directions: using AI to automate and improve chip design, and building specialized chips that make AI dramatically more efficient. The talk presented Agentic-RL gLayout for analog layout generation and a hardware-software co-design stack for efficient edge AI inference.
KAIST, Daejeon, South KoreaRead full story - Internship
Xinting Jiang heads to Google as a Student Researcher
Congratulations to Xinting Jiang, who is joining Google as a Student Researcher this summer! We can't wait to see the ideas Xinting brings back to the lab. Go make some magic happen!
GoogleRead full story - Internship
Minxing Chu lands a summer internship at Analog Devices
Warm congratulations to Minxing Chu on joining Analog Devices (ADI) for a summer internship! A fantastic opportunity to build cool computing systems in industry - go get 'em, Minxing!
Analog Devices (ADI)Read full story - Acknowledgement
Thanks AWS for the $360K cloud credit supporting the Build on Trainium research
Thanks to AWS for the generous $360K cloud credit supporting the Build on Trainium research project "Onboarding and Optimizing Google Gemma on Trainium."
AWS Build on TrainiumRead full story - Conference
Check out our work at ISCAS 2026: "Toward Generative Silicon: The Next Frontier in Open-Source and AI-Driven Analog Design."
Check out our work at ISCAS 2026 in Shanghai - "Toward Generative Silicon: The Next Frontier in Open-Source and AI-Driven Analog Design." Great discussions with the community on where generative analog design is heading next!
ISCAS 2026, Shanghai, ChinaRead full story - Invited Talk
Very interactive session at CEA LETI
Very interactive session and presentation at CEA LETI. Thanks Youcef for hosting me!
CEA LETI, Grenoble, FranceRead full story - Invited Talk
Honored to speak at the XIII Front-End Electronics Workshop in Paris
Honored to give a talk at the XIII Front-End Electronics Workshop in Paris, France, on AI-driven chip design. Many thanks to the organizers for the kind invitation and host!
Paris, FranceRead full story - Invited Talk
Excited to give a webinar at Apple
Excited to give a webinar at Apple, sharing the latest from our work on AI-driven chip design. Huge thanks to Bharan Giridhar for the kind invitation and warm hosting!
AppleRead full story - Invited Talk
Thrilled to give a webinar at Analog Devices
Thrilled to give a webinar at Analog Devices (ADI) on AI-driven chip design. Big thanks to Ash Aldujaili for hosting!
Analog Devices (ADI)Read full story - Announcement
SSCS PICO Open-Source Chipathon 2026 Announced
The IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society has announced the 2026 SSCS "PICO" Open-Source Chipathon, with sign-ups and kickoff on May 1, 2026 and tapeout submissions due September 2026. Teams worldwide design open-source ICs on the GF180MCUD PDK across four tracks: foundational building blocks, sensor circuits, MOSbius learning chips, and AI/LLM-assisted design. Prof. Mehdi Saligane leads the AI/LLM-assisted Circuits track and serves on the Tooling and Reference Flow Committee.
- Invited Talk
Invited Talk at Latch-Up 2026
Prof. Mehdi Saligane is invited to give a talk at Latch-Up 2026 (May 1-3, 2026), the FOSSi Foundation's weekend conference dedicated to advancing free and open-source silicon. The event gathers the open-source digital design community for presentations and networking on topics spanning open EDA tools, verification frameworks, fabrication access, and AI-assisted design workflows.
- Distinguished Lecture
IEEE SSCS Distinguished Lecture at University of Waterloo: Rethinking Chip Design in the Age of AI
The IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society K-W Section and the University of Waterloo host Prof. Mehdi Saligane for a distinguished lecture on "Rethinking Chip Design in the Age of AI." The talk covers Agentic-RL gLayout for automated analog layout generation and a hardware-software co-design stack for efficient edge AI inference that minimizes latency and power consumption.
- Talk
Prof. Mehdi Saligane - Okada Laboratory Talk
Prof. Mehdi Saligane delivered the talk "AI for Chips & Chips for AI" at Okada Laboratory, outlining an open and highly automated paradigm for AI-enhanced chip design and efficient AI accelerators. The talk highlighted open-source EDA workflows and hardware-software co-design to shorten tapeout cycles.
- Workshop
IEEE SSCS Directions Series Workshop: Think & Impact with ICs
Prof. Mehdi Saligane co-chaired the SSCS Directions Series workshop "Think & Impact with ICs: From Words to Circuits - Agentic AI, Foundation Models, and Open EDA" and presented on open, automated design flows for efficient AI-centric systems.
- Seminar
AI for Chips and Chips for AI Talk at KAUST Future of Semiconductors Forum
The KAUST Future of Semiconductors Forum highlighted the "AI for Chips & Chips for AI" theme, focusing on automation and open infrastructure for mixed-signal and AI-accelerator development. A concurrent CEMSE graduate seminar deepened the technical discussion with agentic layout automation and hardware-software co-design for efficient edge AI.
- Seminar
Seminar by Dr. Mehdi Saligane - Integrated Systems Engineering Laboratory
The Integrated Systems Engineering Laboratory at Kyoto University hosted Dr. Mehdi Saligane for a seminar titled "What is Possible with Open Design" (held Dec 27, 2024). The talk discussed open-source design flows and their impact on practical chip development.