> 1) OpenAI genuinely have AI technologies that can improve chip design (bold, unlikely claim, needs evidence)

Chip design languages (HDLs like Verilog or VHDL) are well understood by LLMs. They don’t need specialty tools to use GPT-5.5 or other LLMs with them.

You could even try it yourself with open source chip design tooling if you wanted to see it.

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dofm 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, obviously. But do we think LLMs without access to proprietary information do a better job with them than Broadcom's human experts or existing proprietary tools at this level of operations?

It is still a bold claim and it still needs evidence.

We would obviously get a bit more of the evidence if it were to be more useful for the upcoming IPO than this rather open-ended, reinterpretable phrasing.

	▲	fc417fc802 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> do a better job with them than Broadcom's human experts or existing proprietary tools No, obviously. They'd be expected to do a substantially worse job and yet still drastically accelerate the design process. LLMs make all sorts of dumb mistakes when writing c++ or python yet are nonetheless massively beneficial.

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dpe82 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't understand why you're getting downvoted.

I've used GPT-5.5 and Opus both for FPGA design with good results. We built a lot of tooling around it to help the models, but even without that they're definitely capable of designing digital logic.

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dmitrygr 6 hours ago | parent [-]

My guess: it is that those who KNOW the subject realize that LLMs suck at it, and those who do not, do not realize it, since their output is plausible, and sometimes even works.

This actually plays out across every field and is well documented. An expert can recognize the hallucinations and bullshit coming out of LLMs, while non-experts see plausible output and do not know enough to know it is BS.

	▲	stevenhuang 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Wrong. Myself and colleagues know the subject and they are useful in FPGA design. You should stop hallucinating about topics you don't have experience in.