Chipress Academy

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Chipress.Online | Crack the Hardware Interview We are a group of hardware engineers from Silicon Valley.

We founded Chipress Academy and wrote the book series “Crack the Hardware Interview” to help undergraduate / graduate students and working professionals prepare for the digital design / verification interviews. We have been through multiple rounds of hardware interviews, and understand how stressful and struggling the process can be. We also suffered the same pain as you might have when desiring t

Why does floorplan require designer feedback? 05/12/2026

Floorplan is required for topographical synthesis / production synthesis, as well as physical design. It often requires designer feedback due to the reasons we covered in this post.



Why does floorplan require designer feedback? Floorplan is required for topographical synthesis / production synthesis, as well as physical design. It often requires designer feedback due to the following reasons. Synthesis Re-spin Time There …

Best Practice for SVA Naming Conventions 05/10/2026

Consistent SVA naming conventions not just improve code quality, but also make FV setup more easily. We show a sample SVA naming checklist in this post.

https://chipress.online/2026/05/10/best-practice-for-sva-naming-conventions/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=jetpack_social

Best Practice for SVA Naming Conventions Consistent SVA naming conventions not just improve code quality, but also make FV setup more easily, for example: When designers need to convert a group of assume properties to assertion properties…

04/22/2026

Claude Code saves us tremendous effort in debugging simulation failures, like hang or data mismatch. All we did was pointing it to the test directory, TB, RTL and C-model files. Claude Code works even better with waveforms. Most simulation tools provide APIs to query signals and timing windows in wave dumps, effectively giving Claude Code more context for debugging.

04/08/2026

We are using Claude Code extensively in debugging DV tests, and it works really well. However, it is critical to let Claude Code know where RTL, TB and C-model files locate. In our project-level CLAUDE.md, we clearly document how those files are structured to provide Claude Code some guidance, such that it won’t blindly search the entire code base every single time.

02/28/2026

Claude Code's context window is not unlimited, and the performance degrades quickly as it fills up. In our "CLAUDE.md", the 1st rule is to ask it always respond with our name. If Claude Code forgets to call "Chipress", we know it's time to start a new conversation.

How to write efficient DV constraints? 01/04/2026

In this post, we will share a few tips and tricks of writing efficient DV constraints for better simulation performance.



How to write efficient DV constraints? Split Bigger Problem into Smaller Ones Instead of mixing everything together, splitting bigger problems into smaller steps offers better performance. One may consider using “Solve-Before” for user …

01/02/2026

Simulation hang can be caused by RTL bugs, TB issues, or C-model errors. Let's explore the hang root causes in detail.



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How to spot toxic managers before accepting an offer? 12/24/2025

Most people only realize the manager is toxic after on-boarding, when the switching costs are too high. They did not realize, toxic managers often reveal themselves during the interview process, if they know what to ask and what to look for.



How to spot toxic managers before accepting an offer? Most people only realize the manager is toxic after on-boarding, when the switching costs are too high. They did not realize, toxic managers often reveal themselves during the interview process, if…

What are LEC abort points? How to debug aborts? 11/13/2025

It's not uncommon to see abort points during LEC. This post shows a few possible causes of aborts and how to debug aborts.



What are LEC abort points? How to debug aborts? It is not uncommon to see abort points during LEC. They are the key points that have not been proven either equivalent or non-equivalent based on the current tool settings, such as compare effort o…

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