After more than four decades in the technology industry, including 25 years building companies that designed semiconductors for the communications, networking, and automotive markets, I’ve had a front-row seat to the evolution of our field. I’ve taken two semiconductor companies public, both in the aftermath of historic downturns, and competed against giants and scrappy startups alike.
But one trend has remained disturbingly consistent: the growing cost, time, and complexity required to bring a chip to life. Today I am proud to introduce Cognichip, a company founded to confront these challenges head-on.
Back in 2015, I shared a presentation with my peers on the Silicon Valley Semiconductor Leadership Council, sounding the alarm. VC-backed chip startups had plummeted from 200 in the year 2000 to just four in 2014. The reasons were clear: chip design took too long and demanded too much capital. The result was fewer entrepreneurs with bold new ideas, fewer challengers to the status quo, and a noticeable decline in disruption. Even worse, the pool of engineers willing or able to tackle these challenges was shrinking.
The model of semiconductor innovation we grew up with, pioneers in small teams backed by visionary investors, is vanishing.
Since 2015, the industry has experienced the rise of AI, which has rekindled interest in semiconductors. Currently, about eight VC-backed chip startups emerge each year. While that's an improvement, it still highlights the core issue: even amid a major technological revolution, which relies on semiconductors, the number of new chip companies remains far below historical levels. The same barriers to innovation remain.
At the same time, the industry’s expectations continue to rise. To reach one trillion dollars in annual revenue by 2030, we will need a million more engineers than we have today. That is not going to happen. Graduation rates cannot keep pace and adding more engineers is no longer the answer.
We believe it is time to change the model. Not just tweak it. It is time to radically rethink how chips are designed. This is what led me to found Cognichip, a startup built to do just that.
Cognichip’s mission is to build Artificial Chip Intelligence, or ACI®, a new foundation for semiconductor design that puts physics-informed AI at the center of the development process. ACI® is not another design tool, it is a reinvention of the entire development model, designed to reduce time, cost, and complexity while restoring the culture of pioneering innovation that built this industry in the first place.At Cognichip, we are creating a world where semiconductor design is not only more efficient for semiconductor expert companies, but also the playing field of every bold innovator with a big idea.
The strong and experienced management team is complemented by brilliant AI scientists with PhDs from MIT, Stanford, University of Toronto, Berkeley, and other exceptional universities, some with world Olympiad gold medals in math and physics. The Scientists are paired with best of breed chip designers with decades of deep expertise and experience to make our Models true to form. Our exceptional software developers who are not afraid to challenge the status quo are building the most advanced cloud based platform for chip design
Our vision is audacious. We are building a physics-informed foundation model with designer-level cognitive abilities that delivers Artificial Chip Intelligence. In doing so, we aim to make chip design easier, less expensive, and more accessible for engineers everywhere to create with fewer barriers and greater speed.
We believe AI and compute should be the workhorses of the modern design process. Engineers can elevate their focus to creativity, domain mastery, and building great chips , freed of manual complexity. ACI® will make that possible.
Big vision companies are built with the help of big vision investors. We are fortunate to have Lux Capital, Mayfield, FPV and Candou Ventures as our seed round investors. This group of exceptional and seasoned investors have championed our vision with $33M of seed investment. The experience and network that these investors bring to the table completes the trifecta of Vision, Team, and Investors.
It is time to reignite the spirit of innovation that gave rise to early pioneers like Fairchild Semiconductor, and to empower a new generation of engineers and entrepreneurs, to imagine boldly, and to build fearlessly.
At Cognichip, we are redesigning the future of the semiconductor industry. If you’re looking to solve the world’s toughest science problems and want to build a new framework for chip design, or create infinitely scalable cloud-based software, or be the first to bring to market industry-setting products, come join us as partners and team members and let’s build back up the dynamic nature of our industry where dreams become reality and positively affect our world.
Let’s be pioneers again.
