# a-star

Published articles for a-star.

This is one page of public article previews, not the complete archive. Follow Next page to continue. Summaries are not the original full articles.

## Results from the ASIC puzzle

DevFeed: [Results from the ASIC puzzle](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/results-from-the-asic-puzzle-63798.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.janestreet.com/asic-puzzle-results/>)

Author: Benjamin Devlin

Published: 2026-10-02T00:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Jane Street](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/jane-street.md>)

Topics: [Chip design](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/chip-design.md>), [Reverse Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/reverse-engineering.md>), [code analysis](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/code-analysis.md>), [reproducibility](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/reproducibility.md>)

Tags: [a-star](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/a-star.md>), [asic](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/asic.md>), [bug](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/bug.md>), [c-plus-plus](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/c-plus-plus.md>), [challenges](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/challenges.md>), [checksums](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/checksums.md>), [internals](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/internals.md>), [reverse](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/reverse.md>), [solved](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/solved.md>), [up](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/up.md>)

### AI overview

Jane Street reports the results of a reverse-engineering puzzle built around an ASIC that checks solutions to an 11x11 Star Battle puzzle. Entrants used netlist extraction, simulation, logic analysis, SAT solving, and other methods to uncover the circuit's behavior. The article also highlights debugging lessons, including how testing only against a supplied waveform can leave modeling errors undetected, and discusses uses of AI in building analysis and debugging tools.

### Source excerpt

In August, we published a puzzle that handed you the final GDS layout of a small chip and asked you to work out what it did. We supplied the physical layout, but not a netlist or internal signal names, and it was up to you to reverse-engineer the internals. This post reveals what the chip does and explores the different ways you solved it, with shout-outs to some of our favorite submissions.