About This Course
Hardware design has always rewarded precision - a single misplaced blocking assignment or unsynchronized clock crossing can sink a tapeout. So when large language models arrived promising RTL on demand, most ASIC engineers reacted with justified skepticism. Can a tool that sometimes invents AP1 calls really be trusted with synthesizable Verilog?
This course answers honestly: yes, but only inside the right workflow. You'll learn to treat Al not as an oracle that produces finished designs, but as a fast, knowledgeable, occasionally wrong design partner — one directed with structured prompts and validated with the tools you already trust: linters, simulators, formal checks, and your own engineering judgement.
Working hands-on in VS Code with Kilo Code, you'll move through the full flow from a natural-language spec through architecture, RTL, verification, and debug. You'll see where LLMs genuinely accelerate the work — extracting formal requirements from messy docs, drafting FSMs and register maps, generating testbenches and coverage points — and where they reliably fail, so you can place human review gates exactly where they matter. You'll also learn which model to reach for on which task and how to keep IP-sensitive work local.
You'll leave able to direct Al with confidence rather than hope — faster on the routine, sharper on the review, and clear-eyed about what you shouldn't yet trust it with.
Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, you will be able to:
- Understand how large language models reason about hardware design — and where they reliably fail — so you can direct them with confidence rather than hope.
- Write structured, context-rich prompts that produce synthesisable, lint-clean RTL on the first or second attempt.
- Use VS Code with Kilo Code as an Al-augmented design environment for the full spec-to-RTL workflow.
- Build self-checking simulation testbenches and traceability matrices with Al assistance, then verify them independently.
- Select the right Al model for each task — knowing the trade-offs between free, standard, and advanced models in terms of RTL quality, context retention, and cost.
- Apply the full AI-assisted RTL workflow from specification to verified design, demonstrating how to use AI effectively while validating outputs through review, linting, simulation, and reflection.
Prerequisites
- RTL design fundamentals — comfortable reading and writing Verilog or SystemVerilog (or VHDL); you understand always blocks, blocking vs. non-blocking assignments, FSMs, and synchronous design.
- Basic digital design concepts — clocks, resets, registers, FIFOs, finite state machines, and the idea of clock domain crossing
- Simulation flow familiarity — you've run at least one simulator (Verilator, ModelSim/QuestaSim, VCS, or similar) and can read a waveform.
- A laptop and basic command-line comfort (only if you use your own laptop) — installing tools, running commands, navigating files.
Target Audience
- RTL / logic design engineers — the core audience; engineers writing synthesizable Verilog/VHDL who want Al to speed up FSMs, register maps, and module generation without introducing synthesis bugs.
- Design verification (DV) engineers — those building testbenches, UVM components, and coverage plans who want Al help deriving tests and closing coverage gaps.
- ASIC/SoC design managers and tech leads — leaders deciding whether and how to adopt Al in their flow, who need to understand capabilities, risks, and where to place review gates.
- FPGA engineers — practitioners doing RTL and verification work that transfers directly, even outside full ASIC tapeout flows.
- Systems / architecture engineers — those writing or interpreting specs who want Al help extracting formal requirements, spotting ambiguities, and exploring architectural tradeoffs.
- Hardware engineers transitioning into Al-assisted workflows —experienced designers who are skeptical of LLMs and want a disciplined, tool-validated way to use them.
- Recent graduates / junior engineers — early-career engineers who know RTL fundamentals and want to build good Al habits from the start.
- Verification and design contractors / consultants — independent engineers who want to deliver faster across multiple clients while maintaining quality.
Training Outline
- Introduction to LLMs & Prompt Engineering for RTL
- Specification & Architecture
- High-Level Design
- Low-level Design
- RTL Design & Code Review
- Verification & Coverage Closure
- Debug & Workflow
- Al Harness for RTL Coding