Semiconductor Insiders - Podcast EP330: An Overview of DVCon U.S. 2026 with Xiaolin Chen

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Daniel is joined by Xiaolin Chen, Senior Director of Technical Product Management for Formal Solutions at Synopsys. She has over 20 years of experience applying formal technology in verification and partnering with customers to identify opportunities where formal methods are best suited to solve complex verification challenges.… Read More

Hello, my name is Daniel Nenny, founder of SemaiWiki, the Open Forum for Semiconductor Professionals. Welcome to the Semiconductor Insiders podcast series. My guest today is Jowlin Chen, Senior Director of Technical Product Management for Formal Solutions at Synopsis. She has over 20 years of experience applying formal technology and verification and partnering with customers to identify opportunities where formal methods are best suited to solve complex verification challenges. She is currently serving as the general chair for DBCon, US 2026, one of my favorite shows, by the way. And she's been on the steering committee and has been serving as a member of the Technical Program Committee since 2019. She has authored more than 20 conference papers and holds a patent. Welcome to the podcast, Shelen.

Well, hi, Daniel. Thank you very much for having me on the show. Thank you. So as a background, can I first ask to you, what originally brought you to synopsis and D.E. MECON. Ah, interesting story. What brought me to synopsis? I started out in a semiconductor industry for quite a while, a number of years. Most times I've spent in product engineering or test engineering verification, but for the last almost 25 years since I joined synopsis. So what brought me to synopsis was I was working at an ASIC company.

We were designing ASIC chips. And then we were all using traditional simulation and so on method to do replication. And I met Vigyang single there and he was doing consulting. He was working as a consultant at the company that I was working at. And he was using this new technology is called Formal. So long story short, and he introduced me

to the world, the formal verification that really changed my outlook. And when the company, it's a startup company, was downsizing and so on, I'm finding myself, we need to look for new opportunities. And then I was talking to synopsis, and they say, we have this new exciting opportunity for you. We are working this formal technology and do the model checking, formal model checking. And what do you know about it? And I said, wow, that's interesting.

I just recently got introduced to this technology by Vigyan. And it's really exciting. It's very different thinking of how to solve verification problems. So I got really excited about that. And I was lucky enough to get a chance to work at Synopsis to launch their very first formal model checking tool. And also being there for their launching of a second generation, basically a new generation of a brand new formal checking tool almost more than 10 years later. And this is next generation formal checking tool, which is called VC formal.

We're still showing very strong usage growth even today. So especially today, I see, you know, the formal verification becoming a mainstream. It took us quite some time, you know, to get here. But now it's a must use, must do. So I'm still passionate about it. That's a great story. And what brought you to DDCon? I'm a big fan of DVCon. I've been going to DVCon, I think, ever since it started. But you've been at many different positions in DVCon. So how did you get started? Yeah. How did I get into it? Yeah, it's my favorite show also. I started by participating writing papers, which was accepted by DVV Kong in 2009. That was my first paper. And that was very, very encouraging. And from then on, I bit this bug, I guess.

I continue to write papers and publish papers at different public conferences in the U.S. as well as other parts of the globe. So by participating in these conferences, you know, I always felt like there's such, you know, dynamic energy. And it's a collection of new engineers as well as industry experts. and veterans and so on, they all come together to share their learnings and experiences. You know, I always walk away from these events feeling like so much more energized. And I always felt I've learned so much and meeting all the people, all the people in the industry, and they're all thirst for knowledge and they're all curious and eager to find out what's the latest and greatest things out there, you know.

and then what the challenges everybody is facing and how people are really resolving these issues that I've been dealing with or other people are dealing with. So over the years, you know, for the people who've been coming to the event, they always felt like a little mini reunion for us to meet at conferences like this. It's really, really sweet, really endearing, I feel. And then in 2019, I got an opportunity to join the tech. technical program committee. So I have to thank for Sean Sopapur. That's my manager at the time. I don't know if everybody knows. This conference is run all by the volunteers. So that including myself, we're not getting paid for doing this, right? But when I got this opportunity, I saw it as a way to contribute more to these events that I care about so very much.

So that's the reason I joined in. And a couple of years late, 2019, as you know, and a couple years after that, it's a pandemic hit, right? That's when I became part of the steering committee. Then the responsibility expanded, you know, beyond just a technical program. And so I just got involved more. And this year, I'm very honored and humbled to be serving as the general chair for the whole conference.

Yeah, I agree. It's DVCon is an intimate conference. We all know each other, but that's good. And it's great networking and great place to exchange experiences and ideas. And you know, DVCon has a new location this year. How do you think that's going to affect the conference? That's a great question, Daniel. What do you think?

I think coming out of pandemic in 2020 and 2021, I think we did a virtual or half virtual conference then, then a comeback to live in person in 2022. I think it took quite some time for the people and for the organizations and try to figure out, you know, what is normal and how things should really change and what should be the new normal, right? We all gone through that. So in 2022, there were still some uncertainties, right? By 2023, guess what, the AI tidal wave started. And with that, the whole industry just stood up and took notice. And people are starting to see that AI is going to just

affect every aspect of the industry, including design verification. And the double tree has served as well for many, many years. I don't know. I think you started, I don't know if you started before me going to DV-Con. I started 2009, maybe you'll have even longer history with that. But you know, double tree just starting to feel that we've outgrown the venue has to offer.

So the steering committee started looking for alternative venues. So just the intensification of the future growth because of the AI tidal wave. So what's new venue? I'm very excited about it. This year is for the first time we're going to be at the Hyatt region. Santa Clara and it's located in the heart of the Silicon Valley not very far from double tree but if the venue is layout is very different it's new and it has a very cohesive layout and makes me when you walk in it makes you feel like things

are happening and the full of energy so so that is the vibe I get that's one thing and second thing it's connected to the to the convention center you know I mean, many other tech conferences that's happening over there and we're just connected next to it. And we're next door to the Levi Stadium. You know, I don't know if you know, which we're hosting this year's Super Bowl next week, actually. And it will also be the venue for the 2026 FICA World Cup in June. So it's very exciting area, you know, there's so many things, exciting things happening in the whole area. So it will be a whole new experience for all the attendees so they can walk down to the street to see the convention center, walk down to the Levi Stadium, to see the stadium.

And then there is also Great America, just all within walking distance. I think it's incredible venue. And then I'm also, and coming back to the conference, I'm very excited and pleased to say that the technical session rooms, they all have bigger capacity. I think at the double tree where we're standing room only people were complaining they don't have enough room, but we have expanded that capacity. And not only that, the exhibition floor space also is bigger. And exciting part is even though the bigger space for exhibition, this year will have all sold out for the space for the exhibition. So anyway, at this rate, we'll have to be maybe more. even more created for the next year. So, and they're, you know, on-site restaurants and cafes and bars where you can just have

a casual meeting, relax or unwind, and there are other restaurants within walking distance as well. So it's very exciting for me. Yeah. Don't forget there's better parking too. Oh, yes, absolutely. Thank you for the reminder. Yes, better parking cannot be better than free, right?

Yeah. Yeah, it's one of my favorite conference locations, the convention center and the Hyatt. And I think you will expand your audience there because it's so easy to get to. And the parking is so easy and everything. But, you know, the program looks a little bit different this year than last year. So what's new? Ah, what's new? I think the technical program mostly are the same.

Just let's say the program itself, we have introduced a hackathon for attendees, just to have more fun things to do for the tech people, right? So we are engineers hired. We want to do something fun. So there's a hackathon for designers or revocation engineers. You want to participate throughout the conference. You can participate in that hackathon. And also, I mean, in the past, we generally have a sponsorship.

But this year, we offered platinum sponsorship. And this year we had four. It's, you know, historical. We never have this many platinum sponsors. We have four sponsorships and then a lot of sponsorship, they're gold sponsors. So thank you so much for all the sponsors and the silver sponsors and so on. It's amazing.

So this year, because of four platinum sponsorships, full conference attendees will enjoy sponsored luncheons and so on from like Cadence, Chip agents, Siemens, and synops all four days. So I'm looking forward to participate. from everyone to stay for the whole time because this is really exciting program and all new offerings. So that's new. Yeah, I'm excited about all the sponsors. Most of them we work with on Sima Wiki.

And two of the sponsors, Chip agents and Bronco AI are literally AI startup company verification companies, which I think is amazing. You mentioned the AI wave. And I think AI is really going to affect verification. maybe first and foremost. Yeah, I mean, you can see it everywhere. It's like whether it's verification or design, you can not, you just see that it helps so much

and accelerate everything that you do, right? So it may not replace human, and many people ask questions that will it be, yeah, I don't take my job away or replace me. But I don't see that for now, it's like it's making us more busy, but getting us started faster and anything will take a lot longer time before. Now, with the help of AI, you can be so much more productive. Yeah, I agree with that. I think it's just going to make us more productive, and it's going to turn out better chips.

There's no doubt about that. So talk a little bit more about the program. What does the program look like this year? Yeah, the program will start with Monday. There will be 10 workshops and tutorials. Accelera is sponsoring the event and they have promised to offer some really fun prizes. So please go there. And the tutorials and so on, you can look at the program grid.

It's at the DVCon.org. You can go find all the details on every single workshops and tutorial. And many are AI-related. And that, you know, foremost, you can see across the tutorials, workshops and papers and so on, they all, many, many are AI themes because, you know, it's interweaves into everything we do, right? And the Tuesday, we're going to have paper sessions and the poster sessions and the industry keynote. And then, and Wednesday, we will start with a panel discussion. It's the invited keynote from, and then talk about how to solve the verification

bottleneck. And then we'll be more paper sessions and, you know, invited keynote. We'll announce the best paper and the poster during the evening reception. And as well as the winner of the hackathon, so participating in voting for that's very important. We want to hear from all of you to vote your favorite paper. And then I hope you can be a winner of the hackathon.

And then on Thursday, it's again sponsored tutorial and workshops. We'll have seven of those. on Thursday. So that's the general layout of the program. And can you talk a little bit more about the keynotes? I looked at the keynotes and I actually know several of the gentlemen keynoting. It's an all-star cast.

Yes, it is. Very exciting, right? We have very, very exciting industry keynote. The first one on Tuesday afternoon is titled Verification, Validation, and Hardware Software, challenges with complex chipset based systems. It will be featuring Abbe Kovar. So he's a senior vice president of digital verification technology from Siemens EDA. I don't even though I personally don't know him, but I don't know if you are familiar with the speakers. And the second one is Jean-Marie Bernay. And he is the senior vice president of

hardware system verification from Siemens EDA. And a special industry, industry speaker invited speaker by Csons, which is Alon Chappelle, I believe. So it's a senior director of ASIC verification and emulation from Micron Technology. So they will talk about all the challenges we are evolving towards software defined, AI driven and very modular architectural revocation and their challenges in different ways because AI is driving all the development to be by the design. in size and so on, increasing exponentially. So correctness by design is a must.

So for all these design houses and verification teams, they're facing unprecedented challenges to get right the first time, right? So this keynote is trying to address how there are different complementary perspective to examine how we make this shift to using AI and how it's going to be from, architectural point of view to explore different ways from hardware and software and

combine hardware assist verification and how that will be weaved into across the simulation and acceleration platforms and so on to see how we can improve the efficiency of verification. So that is the first keynote. And the second keynote is by Stuart Oberben from Nvidia. and he's a VP of hardware engineering and the GPU team. And he will talk about from pixels to tokens and chip design and verification in era of AI. So he has many years experience. He's truly veteran leading the verification front for the GPU verification. So he will have many gems and wisdom to share with everyone,

what is the trajectory and how we can most efficiently use the verification, how design and verification tools and methodology need to evolve and adopt to manage both the complexity and the pace of the development, right? So that's the topic they would be talking about. I'm really excited and looking forward to the talks. Yeah, I'm as well. I know a couple of the gentlemen and they're great speakers. So what themes are you seeing throughout the technical program? Yeah, so definitely there's themes, definitely AI. There's no doubt about it. So it's like the keynote, both of the keynote speeches is is weaving AI throughout the different methodologies and so on, the whole flow. And then all the technical programs,

maybe half of them will be AI themed, right? So, So that's just incredible evolution that we see that AI is really a pervasive. They are everywhere, right? So that is a theme for sure. So you've been to quite a few DV-Con conferences just as I have over the years. And, you know, as the chair, though, what are you excited about, you know, personally this year? Yeah, I mean, like I've talked about a lot about the new venue. I'm really excited that I'm just.

energized by it you know I want to walk in and I'm really energized by it by it and then all these keynotes and everybody the experiments they've done the the hard work they've done they come to share everything and then it's all new the AI is it's such a new era so you can see this agentic AI that everybody's bringing how they are weaving into their design of verification cycles how is improving their productivity I'm really excited looking forward to see all of that. And then I'm excited to meet people and all these expanded technical session rooms and exhibition floors. I'm excited to see how it's going to take effect and how that

affect the conference. I'm sure you bring a very positive effect to everybody. So that's what I'm really looking forward to. Yeah, I agree. I think the venue change is going to be key. And for me, AI, I mean, I think it's just going to be amazing. I think AI is going to make us all so much smarter the whole world and that that's a good thing right yes we you know we are each one of only has one brain you know this AI has brains that's scary so I did forget to mention probably something about the panel right we don't have an exciting panel that's again AI is is AI the key to ending the verification bottleneck wouldn't you want to know I'm curious about that see the the the panel

what they have to say. And one more thing, I think is the poster ninja that we have. We started maybe a couple of years ago. So this is very exciting. It's the audience participation, you know, have a debate in front of people and the infantic panelists and the infinite audience. So that's going to be fun too. So yeah, I'm very excited.

Yeah, me too. And I'm happy to see you there again. And thank you for your time. And we'll see you at the conference. Thank you so much for the opportunity, Daniel. I'm looking forward to seeing you there as well. I'm looking forward to see everybody. Please come.

That concludes our podcast. Thank you all for listening and have a great day.