In recent years, AI has begun to be applied in a variety of fields. Even in the semiconductor industry, the shortage of design engineers is becoming more serious. Therefore, the integration of AI into EDA tools is processing. In this paper, we focus on Cadence's digital design platform, Cadence® Cerebrus™ Intelligent Chip Explorer, and describe the current state of design efficiency improvement through the application of AI and the future of EDA tools. The advancement of AI will enable the realization of advanced designs by a small number of design engineers, which is expected to improve design quality and shorten design time.

The noncontact ultrasonic generation and detection technique using lasers is called laser ultrasonics, which is employed for the nondestructive testing of engineering products. However, such nondestructive testing often requires customization to suit the user's specific object, making it important to understand the principle of laser ultrasonics. In particular, the authors have carried out advanced research studies on distinctive ultrasonic excitation techniques and proposed new nondestructive inspection methods. In this paper, the authous first explains the principle of laser-generated ultrasonic waves and methods for controlling them. It then introduces the authors' researches to date, the application to pipe inspection and the process monitoring in metal additive manufacturing.

To ensure a stable power supply, transmission and distribution operators deploy and manage dedicated communication networks for power system security, enabling the remote monitoring and control of power facilities. These networks are subject to extremely stringent requirements—such as microsecond-level latency management—particularly in protection systems. Consequently, highly specialized communication technologies have traditionally been employed, resulting in a slow transition to IP-based architectures. Moreover, escalating maintenance costs and the urgent need for resilience against increasingly severe natural disasters pose significant challenges. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of the current status and key issues in power security communications and examine future directions, including the integration of all-photonics networks (APN), non-terrestrial networks (NTN), and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

Lighting technology that attracts the audience's attention and evokes their emotions in settings such as stages, live performances, and show windows plays a significant role in the fields of entertainment and advertisement. In this paper, we describe a lighting system that intentionally induces an optical phenomenon called metamerism by precisely controlling the illumination spectrum, with the aim of achieving a new lighting effect that leaves a strong impression, such as evoking surprise, on the audience. This system can make objects with different spectral reflectances appear in the same color or change the color of only one object while maintaining the appearance of white color by optimizing the illumination spectrum according to the spectral reflectance of the objects. This system was adopted as stage lighting for one of the fashion shows listed in the official program of the Paris Fashion Week 2024 Spring/Summer, one of the world's largest fashion-related events.