The Unpatchable Chip: A Million-Dollar Mistake

failure. And this is so critical because of the massive upfront commitment. STA isn't just a

random check. It's the final gatekeeper for the entire application-specific integrated circuit flow,

the ASIC flow. And ASIC is, you know, right there in the name.

It is. It's a fixed, custom piece of silicon designed for one specific

application. In VLSI, very large scale integration, once that chip is

manufactured, that's it. It's locked in stone, you can't patch it.

That fixed commitment is key. If you make a mistake, you're not just fixing code,

you're scrapping millions of dollars of physical hardware. You really are.