Agentic artificial intelligence is likely to give the open-source electronic design automation market a meaningful boost. Its biggest contribution will not be the immediate replacement of established commercial platforms from Cadence, Synopsys, or Siemens. Instead, agentic AI can make open-source tools easier to use, … Read More
At Hot Chips 2025, Philippe Sauter of ETH Zürich presented Basilisk, a project that may redefine what’s possible with open-source hardware. Basilisk is a 34 mm² RISC-V SoC fabricated at IHP Microelectronics on its open-source 130nm BiCMOS process in Germany. Basilisk, named after the Greco-Roman mythical creature known… Read More
Designing semiconductor chips has traditionally been costly and controlled by a few major Electronic Design Automation (EDA) vendors—Cadence, Synopsys, and Siemens EDA who dominate with proprietary tools protected by NDAs and restrictive licenses. Fabrication also requires expensive, often export-controlled equipment.… Read More
