Keysight Tackles Semiconductor Talent Gap with Executable RF Design Whiteboard

Keysight announced a new capability within its RF Circuit Simulation Professional software which enables engineers to capture their design process on an executable whiteboard. It replicates the engineer’s decision process, capturing simulations, optimizations, decision trees, and design parameters built on prior analyses. Each step generates editable Python code that can be saved, shared, and redeployed across Keysight Advanced Design System, Cadence Virtuoso, and Synopsys Custom Compiler environments. 

RF organizations face a looming talent gap. McKinsey projects the semiconductor industry will need 88,000 engineers by 2029. In RF design, the challenge is more acute. Simulation methodologies spanning multiple physics domains can take years to master, and critical expertise is often lost when senior engineers leave.

Design teams face inefficient workflows, simulation bottlenecks, and knowledge barriers. RF Circuit Simulation Professional lets engineers construct their workflow on a visual whiteboard or in auto-generated Python scripts. Each step executes simulations, optimizations, and design decisions in sequence, with support for decision-based loops and parameter settings.

Each workflow becomes a repeatable methodology that can be shared across teams, reused, and driven by AI. Design review and tapeout steps that previously required manual setup for each iteration now run automatically.

Nilesh Kamdar, EDA General Manager, Keysight, said: “RF design expertise is leaving the industry faster than it can be replaced. The simulation knowledge that senior engineers have accrued cannot be transferred through documentation alone. Design teams now have a way to capture that experience as a visual, executable, reusable workflow. The structured data this generates, and the underlying Python APIs, are the first step toward fully automated, AI/ML-driven RF design.”

Source: Keysight media announcement