Superhuman AI for Design Verification, Delivered at Scale

Introduction

The semiconductor industry is entering a new era—one where traditional EDA tools can no longer keep pace with the scale of data, complexity of multi-chip systems, and the verification demands of modern AI-driven architectures. As verification datasets explode and debug tasks grow more intricate, engineering teams face an unsustainable workload.

In this landscape, Bronco AI introduces a superhuman, scalable AI platform designed specifically for design verification—one that integrates seamlessly into existing flows, accelerates debug, and continuously improves while protecting customer IP.

This is not incremental progress. It is a paradigm shift.

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The Verification Challenge

For decades, EDA innovation has centered on producing better chips—higher performance, lower power, faster time to market. Verification and debug have always been essential steps in this process.

But the world has changed:

• AI models now require massive, distributed architectures.

• Multi-chip solutions (chiplets, 2.5D/3D ICs) generate unprecedented verification data.

• Testplans and specifications continue to expand.

• Debug datasets now scale beyond human capacity.

Verification teams simply cannot analyze this volume of data manually within project timelines. AI is both the cause of this complexity—and the solution.

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Enter Bronco AI

I met with David Zhi LuoZhang, the co-founder and CEO of Bronco AI, to understand what makes their technology unique. David’s background spans AI fighter jet algorithms at Shield AI and embedded algorithm roles at SpaceX—experiences rooted in extreme performance, safety, and scale.

His insights into verification reflect a deep understanding of both AI infrastructure and semiconductor engineering.

What Bronco AI Does

Bronco accelerates the full verification lifecycle, including:

• Specification analysis

• Verification planning

• Testbench bring-up

• Simulation debug

• Root-cause localization

These steps are massively time-consuming and data heavy. Bronco’s platform leverages agentic AI to automate and scale tasks that exceed human capability.

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Secure, Scalable, and Continuously Learning

David highlighted three unique attributes that set Bronco AI apart:

1. Customer Data Never Leaves the Firewall

Bronco runs entirely inside the customer environment.

• No cloud training on proprietary data

• No external model updates

• IP and flows remain fully protected

For semiconductor companies, this is non-negotiable.

2. An Agentic Architecture That Learns Like an Expert Engineer

Bronco’s tools become smarter with every problem solved.
A unified data model and shared AI foundation allow continuous improvement:

• Better triage

• Better anomaly detection

• Better root-cause analysis

But this learning is customer-specific—not shared across organizations.

3. Automated Input Quality Analysis

Bad inputs lead to bad outputs. Bronco automatically checks:

• Design files

• Waveforms

• Logs

• Simulation artifacts

• Specs and requirements

This prevents the "garbage in, garbage out" problem common in verification.

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Inside the Bronco AI Debug Demo

The team demonstrated Bronco AI using a real, open-source Network-on-Chip (NoC) subsystem—similar to designs many customers use.

How the Debug Flow Works

1. The engineer provides:

   • Design files

   • Waveforms

   • Logs

   • Simulation data

   • Description of the issue (in natural language)

2. Bronco builds a detailed debug playbook outlining:

   • Analysis strategy

   • Module interactions

   • Protocol expectations

   • Suspected failure points

3. The system performs deep analysis, running agentic processes in parallel.

4. Within ~25 minutes, Bronco localizes the root cause and presents the top explanations.

The Debug Query

David simply typed:

“Why is my NoC hanging/timing out? Please debug.”

The system analyzed routers, NIUs, handshakes, timing patterns, and more—then surfaced the correct root cause and alternatives for the engineer to evaluate.

This is transformative when compared to traditional workflows where engineers arrive each morning to sift through thousands of lines of logs.

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Customer Feedback

A testimonial from etched, a startup building AI ASICs on TSMC 4nm, captures the impact:

“Bronco helps our DVs get a head start on their work and helps us bank institutional knowledge, automate tasks, and elevate DVs to be like scientists.”

It’s rare to see a tool that impacts productivity and capability at this depth.

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Why This Matters

Bronco AI is not just automating verification—it is changing the scale at which verification can be performed.

Business Impact

• Dramatically shorter debug cycles

• Higher verification coverage

• Faster tapeouts

• Stronger IP security

• Institutional knowledge retention

• Consistent debug processes across teams

When debug becomes superhuman, design teams can focus on innovation instead of data overload.

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Conclusion

Bronco AI represents a new generation of EDA tools—superhuman, scalable, secure, and purpose-built for today’s verification challenges. As designs become larger, more heterogeneous, and more AI-centric, solutions like Bronco will become essential infrastructure.

If verification at scale is your bottleneck, Bronco AI may be the breakthrough your team has been waiting for.