3 Best Laptops for VLSI Design in 2025
From this article, you will know what are, in our opinion, the best laptops for VLSI design you can buy and use in 2025.
VLSI design is an activity that tries to make an integrated circuit by combining a lot of transistors into a single chip. It is usually done by an electrical engineer and involves designing and testing the circuit to make sure it can work the way it is intended to.
In doing VLSI design work, some tools can help us do it much more optimally. One of them is a laptop. Several software programs can greatly support VLSI design activities and a laptop can help us run them smoothly while also having the flexibility to work anywhere we want.
However, it is important to have a laptop that has the right model and specification details so we can smoothly run all the software that we need. If you are an electrical engineer who does VLSI design but don’t have a capable laptop yet to support your work, it is probably the right time for you to buy a new laptop.
However, it can be hard to pick the right laptop for you to buy and use from many laptop choices out there. This is why Compute Expert has compiled a list of the best laptops for VLSI design that you can use as your laptop-buying reference.
Want to know what laptops we recommend for VLSI design and why we recommend them? Let’s get on the list right away.
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Image | View on Amazon | Product |
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Dell XPS 15 | ||
Asus ZenBook Pro 14 | ||
Acer Swift X |
Table of Contents:
What are the Best Laptops for VLSI Design?
Now, let’s see the laptops we recommend when it comes to supporting your VLSI design work. Using one of these laptops should help you get the laptop support you need to design circuits more optimally.1. Dell XPS 15
Dell XPS 15 is the first laptop we recommend to do VLSI design work with. It is an excellent laptop from Dell with high-quality specifications to let you design and test your circuits smoothly.This laptop has a 13th Intel Core i7 processor that has 14 cores and a speed up to 5 GHz. Running software like Cadence Virtuoso or using a Linux virtual machine should give you no problem with the support of this processor. The RAM capacity is 32GB, which is plenty to provide you room for multitasking.
There are two Thunderbolt 4 ports you can use on the sides of this laptop to transfer data fast and connect to external displays. That can be an important specification to have so you can do your VLSI design work optimally. When you need to store files related to your work, there is 1TB SSD storage space ready for you to fill.
The design of this laptop looks professional and it has a premium build so it should fit in any professional setting you work. All in all, this Dell XPS 15 9520 can be a good laptop choice for you if you want to buy a laptop to support your VLSI design work.
Key Features
- Screen Size, Resolution: 15.6 inches, 1920 x 1200 pixels
- Processor: 13th Gen Intel Core i7 with 14 cores and speed in the range of 2.4-5 GHz
- RAM Capacity: 32GB
- Storage: 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD
- Battery Life (Estimation): up to 9 hours of usage capacity
Pros
- Excellent specifications to support VLSI design work
- Premium build
- Sleek and professional-looking design
- Two Thunderbolt 4 ports
- Excellent speakers
- Comfortable keyboard to type on
Cons
- No USB-A and HDMI ports
- Average webcam quality
2. Asus ZenBook Pro 14
Asus ZenBook Pro 14 is the next laptop you might want to take a look at. As a powerful laptop from Asus, it should be able to deliver the performance level you need for your VLSI design work.To back up its performance, this laptop has a 13th Gen Intel Core i9 processor. It is a quality processor with a lot to like in terms of its capabilities to run VLSI design software. There is 16GB RAM to adequately accommodate your memory space needs.
The display quality of this laptop is great with a 100% DCI-P3 color gamut and OLED screen to provide you with an accurate view of your circuit design details. When you need to connect to external devices, there are USB-A, Thunderbolt 4 USB-C, and HDMI ports on this laptop ready for you to use.
There is an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 GPU as well to give you much better graphics processing when working on your circuit designs. Overall, this Asus ZenBook Pro 14 seems able to offer what you need from a laptop to do VLSI design more optimally.
Key Features
- Screen Size, Resolution: 14.5 inches, 2880 x 1800 pixels
- Processor: 13th Gen Intel Core i9 with 14 cores and speed in the range of 2.6-5.4 GHz
- RAM Capacity: 16GB
- Storage: 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD
- Battery Life (Estimation): up to 10 hours of usage capacity
Pros
- Excellent specifications to support VLSI design work
- Solid build
- USB-A, Thunderbolt 4 USB-C, and HDMI ports
- High-quality display
- Comfortable keyboard to type on
Cons
- No SD card reader slots
3. Acer Swift X
Acer Swift X is another laptop we think can be great for VLSI design. Coming with quality specifications, this laptop looks nice and can give plenty of power to support your work productivity.Performance-wise, this laptop should have enough to run the software you need. There is a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB RAM capacity to handle the task for you. When you need to use its battery, it can last all day to make you feel not too dependent on a power outlet to work.
This laptop is quite sleek and lightweight in its design so you should be able to bring it around and work anywhere easily. To support your graphics processing, there is an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 GPU ready for you to use.
Looking for a capable laptop to accompany you when you do your VLSI design activities? You might want to consider buying and using this Acer Swift X laptop too.
Key Features
- Screen Size, Resolution: 14.5 inches, 2880 x 1800 pixels
- Processor: 13th Gen Intel Core i7 with 14 cores and speed in the range of 2.4-5 GHz
- RAM Capacity: 16GB
- Storage: 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD
- Battery Life (Estimation): up to 10 hours of usage capacity
Pros
- Excellent specifications to support VLSI design work
- Quite sleek and lightweight
- A full range of ports with two Thunderbolt 4 ports
- A full-HD webcam
- Excellent display
Cons
- Average speakers
- Average keyboard quality
What are the Things We Should Consider When We Want to Buy a Laptop for VLSI Design Work?
For us, here are the things to be considered when buying a laptop for VLSI design work.- Operating System (OS). Some things you may often need to use in VLSI design, like Cadence Virtuoso or Quartus, can only run on Windows OS. Thus, we think it is better if you buy a Windows laptop for VLSI design so you most likely don’t run into trouble later on because you cannot run the things you need for your work optimally
- Processor. VLSI design can give quite demanding tasks for a laptop to do so the laptop you buy better has a high-quality processor to anticipate that. We recommend a laptop with at least a late-generation i7 or Ryzen 7 processor for this
- RAM capacity. VLSI design software may eat up a lot of memory space on your laptop, especially if you do complex designs. Thus, the laptop you buy better has a large RAM capacity. We recommend a laptop with at least 16GB RAM for this
- Storage. You may often need to store many files related to your work internally on your laptop so you can access them much easier later. Thus, the laptop you buy should have adequate storage space to accommodate those files. We recommend a laptop with at least 512GB SSD storage space for this
- GPU. Some software you use in your work may need to use a dedicated GPU in your laptop so it can run much more smoothly. Thus, we recommend you buy a laptop with a dedicated GPU as one of its specifications
Wrap Up
When you want to buy a laptop, you may want one that can help you do VLSI design work optimally. However, it can be hard to pick a laptop like that from many laptop choices available out there. This is why Compute Expert has created a list of the best laptops for VLSI design to help you.To summarize, here are three laptops we think you should consider buying and using to support your VLSI design work.
We hope our list can help you buy the best laptop for you to use!
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