# Fabless Chip Design with Mohamed Kassem

- Show: [The Amp Hour](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour)
- Published: 2020-08-02
- Length: 1h 29m
- Episode: 503
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2020-08-02-fabless-chip-design-with-mohamed-kassem
- Listen: https://theamphour.com/503-fabless-chip-design-with-mohammed-kassem/

## Summary

Mohamed Kassem, co-founder and CTO of eFabless, explains how the company is democratizing fabless chip design through the OpenLANE tool flow and the newly announced open-source PDK from Google and Skywater. He details the economic shift that lowers the barrier to entry for custom silicon, reducing upfront costs from hundreds of thousands to under $10,000 for prototypes, and discusses the technical architecture of OpenLANE, including its use of OpenRoad and Yosys to generate GDS files. Kassem also describes the 'Raptor' configuration tool that allows system designers to generate custom chip RTL without deep hardware knowledge, and highlights the collaborative validation of the Skywater PDK by the open-source community.

## Chapters

- [0:00](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2020-08-02-fabless-chip-design-with-mohamed-kassem#t=0) Introduction and the Semiconductor Industry Context
- [6:18](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2020-08-02-fabless-chip-design-with-mohamed-kassem#t=378) The eFabless Vision and Open Source EDA
- [18:41](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2020-08-02-fabless-chip-design-with-mohamed-kassem#t=1121) Economics of Custom Silicon and ASIC Viability
- [29:08](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2020-08-02-fabless-chip-design-with-mohamed-kassem#t=1748) The Raven Microcontroller and Open IP
- [41:30](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2020-08-02-fabless-chip-design-with-mohamed-kassem#t=2490) OpenLANE Flow and GDS Format Explained
- [54:18](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2020-08-02-fabless-chip-design-with-mohamed-kassem#t=3258) Validating the Skywater Open PDK
- [1:10:00](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2020-08-02-fabless-chip-design-with-mohamed-kassem#t=4200) The Raptor Configuration Tool and Business Model

## Topics

- [Chips, FPGAs & semiconductors](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/chips-and-fpgas)
- [EDA & CAD tools](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/eda-and-cad-tools)
- [Starting a product company](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/starting-a-company)
- [Pricing, margins & unit economics](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/pricing-and-unit-economics)
- [Open-source hardware](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/open-source-hardware)

## Most relevant to

early-stage companies

## Mentioned

- eFabless (company)
- OpenLANE (tool)
- Skywater (company)
- Google (company)
- Raven (product)
- OpenRoad (tool)
- Yosys (tool)
- Raptor (product)
- Strive (product)
- ARM (company)
- GlobalFoundries (company)
- Magic (tool)

## Related episodes from other shows

- [454: Printf Hello](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2023-07-06-454-printf-hello) (Embedded.fm)
- [US Semi Fab SkyWater Seeks to Co-Innovate in Quantum, Photonics, and…Free Silicon?](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/moores-lobby/2022-09-13-us-semi-fab-skywater-seeks-to-co-innovate-in-quantum-photonics-and-free-silicon) (Moore's Lobby)
- [T-25-010 :  Ioannis Papamanoglou and Narayan Powderly - Engineers transforming how we design, test, and build hardware with atopile](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/tradeoffs/2026-01-01-t-25-010-ioannis-papamanoglou-and-narayan-powderly-engineers-transforming-how-we) (TRADEOFFS)
- [044 - Scots Army Knife](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/unnamed-reverse-engineering-podcast/2021-01-03-044-scots-army-knife) (Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast)
- [105: Some Paths Are More Suicidal](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2015-06-17-105-some-paths-are-more-suicidal) (Embedded.fm)

## Citing this page

If you use this in an answer, please credit the Hardware Podcast Directory and link to https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2020-08-02-fabless-chip-design-with-mohamed-kassem. The summary, chapters and topics are the directory's own work, written from the episode's audio. The episode itself, its title and its audio belong to The Amp Hour.