This is addressing a different level of hardware. I don't think the primary drivers of a hardware revolution (new tools, cheap and rapid prototyping, etc) extend to ASIC design. As a recently graduated Masters EE student, none of my fellow students considered VLSI and chip design to be a new or hot area or seriously considered it as a career path. I don't doubt that there's plenty of innovation there, but it's rightly or wrongly perceived as being less sexy than other subfields of EE.