Designing a 45nm Chip Without Commercial EDA: China's Moonshot AI Challenges Status Quo with Open Source

Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI has triggered a fracture in the US-dominated semiconductor design monopoly. On July 18 (local time), the company announced it had completed the design of a 45nm process chip using its self-developed large language model (LLM), 'Kimi K3.' The design was executed using an open-source toolchain, bypassing commercial Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software entirely.

The designed chip is a nano-scale accelerator with a 4mm² area and a clock speed of 100MHz, with its functionality verified in simulation. This achievement represents a virtual verification phase via simulation and does not involve the physical production of a chip through a foundry.

Following the news, shares in Cadence Design Systems and Synopsys—which dominate the commercial EDA market—plunged 9.47% and 7.85%, respectively, on the New York Stock Exchange on July 17. Moonshot AI plans to release the full model weights, EDA toolchain, and design methodology in a technical report on July 27.