Guests:
- Yervant Zorian, Synopsys Armenia, AM
- Michael Randt, TRINAMIC Motion Control (founder), DE
Host:
- Maksim Jenihhin, TalTech, EE
Two industry leaders compare two paths in chip design: building a company and building an ecosystem. They discuss how Armenia became a chip design hub, what Estonia can learn from it, why custom chips matter for physical AI, and how AI is changing the way chips are designed. The episode also includes a live demo of an AI avatar answering questions in Estonian.
- How did a freelance engineering business become a fabless chip company?
- How did chip design in Armenia start, and what made it grow?
- What can Estonia learn from Armenia, and why are "we don't have a foundry" and "we don't have enough people" only excuses?
- Why is the need for custom chips growing, and why should a startup build an application-specific standard product (ASSP) rather than an ASIC?
- What does physical AI, with robots and other moving machines, mean for chip design and for keeping chips healthy over their lifetime?
- How is AI changing chip design, from co-pilots to teams of AI agents and towards full autonomy, and what will a chip design team look like?
- What should Estonia do next, and why is the tape-out the start rather than the finish line?
Recorded: October 2026, Tallinn
Published: October 2026
