[deepnotderp]

While I agree that the semiconductor industry is crushingly conservative, it's not necessarily that bad. You can still use many of the "old classics", you just have to remember that instead of 10 design rules there are 10K ;)

In all honesty though, a significant amount of the complexity can be hidden in the eda layers nowadays, and instead of dealing with the er,"tenacious"- synthesis tools, you can use good alternatives like Chisel.

[sandGorgon]

Is that actually viable ? The Synopsy and Cadence tools have had several million man hours put into it.

Does something like Chisel give you competitive apples-to-apples performance ? All the way to GDS?