ChipAgents Helps Whalechip Cut Semiconductor Root Cause Analysis from Days to Minutes

AI-powered platform identified four critical SoC bugs and helped prevent up to two weeks of potential development delays

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ChipAgents, the category leader for Agentic AI platforms in the semiconductor design industry, announced that Whalechip has successfully deployed ChipAgents' AI-powered platform, which immediately paid dividends during a recent critical chip debugging effort. Using ChipAgents, the Whalechip engineering team was able to rapidly identify critical design issues in a new chip and significantly reduce the time required for root cause analysis.

"The semiconductor industry doesn't have a chip shortage problem. It has an engineering productivity problem," said William Wang, Founder and CEO of ChipAgents. "Engineering teams often spend days searching through logs, waveforms and fragmented design data trying to understand why a system failed. Whalechip's deployment demonstrates how domain-specific AI can dramatically reduce the time required to identify and resolve critical design issues."

When Whalechip engineers encountered a complex issue with a new chip design, they faced limited visibility into the source of the problem and were forced to rely on logs and indirect system signals to piece together what was happening inside the design.

Whalechip deployed ChipAgents' autonomous platform, which uses specialized semiconductor AI agents to analyze unstructured engineering data and generate actionable debugging insights. During a 60-hour debug effort, the platform identified three complex structural pitfalls, including gated clock conversion, clock self-brick and removal violations, and uncovered four critical bugs within a customer memory controller, including a hidden three-cycle race condition that would have been difficult and time-consuming to diagnose through traditional methods.

"As chip designs grow more complex, root cause analysis has become a critical bottleneck in development. As a company with hands-on 3DIC and Wafer-on-Wafer mass production experience, ChipAgents enabled us to isolate design bugs significantly faster, a capability that will only grow more important as 3D stacked die interactions introduce ever-greater debugging complexity," said Thomas Tsai, CEO at Whalechip.

The results were significant. By replacing manual waveform analysis and log review with AI-driven root cause analysis, Whalechip reduced per-round RCA cycles from days to as little as 15 to 60 minutes. The platform achieved a 100% hit rate in identifying the underlying issues and helped prevent an estimated one to two weeks of project delays.

Whalechip's deployment highlights a growing challenge facing the semiconductor industry. As chip designs become larger and more sophisticated, verification, debug and root cause analysis continue to consume a significant portion of engineering resources. While much of the industry's AI conversation has focused on code generation and design automation, many engineering organizations are increasingly looking to AI to help accelerate the identification and resolution of complex design and verification issues.

Unlike general-purpose coding assistants, ChipAgents is purpose-built for semiconductor engineering and designed to work across specifications, simulation logs, waveforms, verification environments and other specialized workflows. The platform transforms specifications and code into production-ready RTL, verification assets and automated root cause analysis, helping engineering teams accelerate development while reducing time spent on repetitive manual tasks.

For more information about ChipAgents' solutions for AI-assisted design, verification, debug and root cause analysis, visit chipagents.ai.

About ChipAgents

ChipAgents is an Agentic AI platform that transforms specifications and code into production-ready RTL, verification assets, and automated root-cause analysis, dramatically shortening design and verification cycles. Founded in 2024, the company brings autonomous AI Agents into production semiconductor workflows, serving both design and verification engineers and embedded systems teams at leading semiconductor companies worldwide. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. For more information, visit chipagents.ai.

About Whalechip

Whalechip is an IC design company specializing in 3DIC and Wafer-on-Wafer (WoW) advanced packaging technology. Focused on AI data center and edge computing applications, Whalechip delivers custom 3DIC silicon solutions that push the boundaries of memory integration and compute density for next-generation AI workloads.