Changelog 2: Digital Design, live circuits, and a sharper lab

Since the first changelog, the biggest shift has been learning. A full Digital Design course is live, lessons now include circuits you experiment with, and the coding lab inside courses got a serious upgrade. The IDE also got quieter and more trustworthy.

Here is what landed.

Learning

Digital Design is live

A new course takes you from voltages and bits through combinational logic, sequential design, Verilog, verification, timing, and the path from RTL to silicon. Eight modules, sixty-two lessons, with figures and labs built for the player.

Open it from Learn and start at the first module. No install.

Live circuits inside lessons

The "coming soon" interactive circuits shipped. Flip switches, watch signals change, and build intuition on gates, muxes, adders, latches, flip-flops, counters, and FSMs before you write the Verilog.

There is also a Circuit Lab Verilog workspace on the dashboard if you want to sketch and simulate outside a lesson.

Code exercises feel more like a real lab

• Your work is saved automatically. Type code, close the lesson, refresh, or come back another day, and your design and testbench are still there.
• Checking your answer is more honest. When you hit Check, we run your code for real and show the actual output, not a guess based on hidden rules.
• Clearer feedback while you wait. You see when your code is compiling and running, then get a straightforward pass or fail with the full console output underneath.
• A roomier coding workspace. Check and Continue live in the instructions panel, so the editor and console can use the full height of the screen. You can drag to resize the console, and we remember your preferred size.

Module quizzes

Each module can generate a short quiz from what you just studied. Use it to check what stuck before you move on.

Faster lesson figures

Lesson images now load straight from storage instead of going through an extra image proxy. Figures should appear sooner, especially on slower connections.

IDE

One place for your schematic

Schematic viewing is unified in a single panel. Layout, logic view, and critical-path highlighting live in one spot.

A cleaner, less cluttered workspace

• Simpler top bar. One clear status while a build is running, less icon noise, and a renamed Check RTL action that is easier to understand.
• Tidier sidebar and assistant. Less visual clutter so you can focus on the design.

Builds and errors you can actually trust

• Correct results per tool. Switching between OpenLane and the testbench no longer shows results from the wrong run.
• Failed runs stay failed. A failed build will not snap you back to an older successful one.
• Errors in one place. When something goes wrong, you get a clear failed status, readable logs, and a quick jump to the line that broke, plus an option to ask the assistant for help.

Platform

• Feedback form works again. Sending feedback from the platform is reliable once more.
• Hardening pass. Plan limits, job analysis writes, AI route allowances, signup bot checks, and learning progress mutations all got tighter ownership and origin checks.

If something still feels off, tell us in the in-platform feedback or by email. Most of what is above started as someone hitting a rough edge and letting us know.