- The problem
- A first-time hardware founder often cannot tell whether a ready-made module, a chip you can reprogram, a shared production run or a custom chip fits the volume and the budget.
- What DesignAChip does
- It turns your answers into a Chip Design File with the architecture, the specification, the checks and a plain build or do not build call. It then shows which routes could make the chip, checked against your design, and the partners who can help.
- Template and plan that usually fit
- M26-LIAM for battery powered sensors and M26-DASH for control products. First products are usually single purpose, so Pro fits. Pro is proposed at USD 50 a month.
- When the answer is do not build
- A free module or development board may already do the job. Then the honest answer is do not build and there is nothing to buy.
Design your own chip. We show you how to build it.
DesignAChip helps you build your chip design for your tool or technology, then recommends the ways to get the chip made.
This is a preview of a service being set up. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
How it works
Say what the chip is for
Name your tool or technology and pick the kind of chip that is closest.
Answer a few plain questions
What it must do, its limits and where it runs. Not sure is a fine answer.
Get your design file
One file with the design, the specification and the checks.
See the ways to build it
Real routes to silicon checked against your design, and partners who can help.
What you get
The Chip Design File is yours to keep. It comes as a readable document and as a machine readable file, so a partner can start from it.
It describes a good design for your job, shows which routes to silicon could take it today and what each would cost, and says plainly what is still missing before a chip can be made.
Inside the file
- Summary and an honest verdict
- Architecture the blocks and where each comes from
- Specification every number labelled for how sure we are
- Checks safety, claims, export and approvals
- How it will be checked
- Risks and what is still missing
- Ways to build it routes that fit, with partners
Start from the kind of chip you need
Pick the one closest to your job. You can change anything later.
Sensor or field device
Small, frugal, built to last
Lives on a small energy budget, often far from help, and must keep running for years.
Controller that must react on timeMotors, power and protection
Anything where a late answer is a wrong answer.
Heavy computingAI and signal processing
Throughput and memory speed decide the result.
Where chips get built
Your design file checks your design against the routes that exist today and shows the ones that fit.
What we do and what we do not
We help you design. Your answers become a design at the level of blocks, connections, size ranges and checks.
We do not make layouts or silicon. A layout comes from an open tool flow or a partner. The file lists what is missing.
We say when not to build. If software, a part you can buy or a programmable chip does the job, the file says so first.
Nobody pays to be listed or ranked. Routes and partners follow written rules, and every row shows the date its page was read.
Design your chip
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The founder
Marques Jeevan Menon
A chemical engineer turned policy strategist, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
About Marques
Marques Jeevan Menon holds a B.Eng (Hons) from UCSI University. He has spent fifteen years across energy, government, education and civil society.
He writes and speaks about AI governance, stewardship economics and leadership.
Why he started DesignAChip
His work on AI stewardship asks what stays scarce as intelligence becomes abundant. His answer is human judgement, trust, conscience and responsibility.
A chip decision is one place where that question gets expensive. Designing and making a chip can cost millions of dollars and take years, and a design can be made more complex than the need ever required. DesignAChip exists to put plain, independent information in front of the people making that decision, before they spend.
What he wants DesignAChip to be
Six promises the platform is meant to keep. Each one says what exists today, and what does not exist yet.
Ideas he writes about
- The AI Stewardship Framework
- Asks what stays scarce as intelligence becomes abundant. His answer is human judgement, trust, conscience and responsibility.
- The Reconstitutive Stewardship Economy
- An economy rebuilt to last, where value is measured by resilience, trust and human capability.
- The Mosaic Threshold
- A lens for reading the sustainability of an economy. He offers it as a hypothesis to test and not as a law.
Ways to build a chip
What the service does
How it works
By who you are
Solutions
Find how DesignAChip applies to your work. Each section gives the problem, what DesignAChip does, the template and plan that usually fit, and an honest note on when the answer is do not build.
These fits are our own reasoning from public pages. No customer has used DesignAChip yet and no customer has been interviewed, so treat each fit as a view to test and not as a result. No customer is named on this site.
- The problem
- A lab with a research idea needs to know quickly whether it should be simulated, put on a chip you can reprogram, or sent to a shared production run, and what each costs. Students need a worked example of a requirements record.
- What DesignAChip does
- It turns the idea into a design file with the architecture and the checks, shows which shared runs could take it with sourced and labelled prices, and gives worked examples to learn from.
- Template and plan that usually fit
- M26-HAYDN for accelerator or chiplet ideas. A lab explores one idea at a time, so Pro usually fits on complexity. A team that needs several seats should note that Pro is proposed with 1 seat and Ultra with 3.
- When the answer is do not build
- Most labs will be told to prove the idea in simulation or on a chip they can reprogram before any tapeout, which is the hand-off of a final design for manufacture. Academic routes may already be cheap or free through programmes such as Europractice, local programmes or your own supervisors.
- The problem
- A field sensor node lives or dies on average power, which is a chip level question, and volumes can run to thousands.
- What DesignAChip does
- It works out battery life from stored energy and average power, gives a plain route call and lists the hardware and software to plan around the chip. In the illustrative soil sensor example, the energy check works out the life and compares it with the target. The inputs were invented and the example is not a customer.
- Template and plan that usually fit
- M26-LIAM. A soil or field node is a single endurance problem, so Pro fits. An autonomous rover that uses all three templates is a case for Ultra.
- When the answer is do not build
- Ready-made low power radio modules may already meet most needs, and volumes may be too small for a custom part. The honest answer is often to buy a module.
- The problem
- Makers of motor drives, protection relays or robot controllers meet timing, safety and supply questions. Makers of meters, sensors, inverters and chargers ask which parts to specify.
- What DesignAChip does
- For timing work it asks for a stage by stage delay path and a method to bound the worst case timing. For long life work it checks the energy budget and asks for a named threat model with any security claim.
- Template and plan that usually fit
- M26-DASH for control and power control, and M26-LIAM for meters and sensors. Many products are one deadline problem, so Pro often fits. A control product that also needs a secure start-up or local compute may need two templates, and then Ultra fits.
- When the answer is do not build
- Commodity parts are cheap and certified, and a custom chip adds qualification cost and supply risk. Your safety standards may also need evidence that a small service cannot give. Qualification for industrial use is a separate funded step.
- The problem
- A larger company may want an independent first read of an idea before it briefs a design house or a foundry.
- What DesignAChip does
- It gives the same design file, the same checks and a fixed shape quote request if you want one. You choose how much detail to share, from a public summary up to full detail after a contract. For now, keep to specification level information, because the storage that would protect confidential files is not built or reviewed yet.
- Template and plan that usually fit
- A project that needs one template fits Pro, and a project that needs two or three fits Ultra. Ultra is proposed with 3 seats and Pro with 1.
- When the answer is do not build
- An existing part or a chip you can reprogram may already meet the need. Heavy qualification and export control can also point to the specialist route, and a shared production run part is not qualified for space or aviation.
- The problem
- You want to see how a chip decision is made, step by step, on a safe example.
- What DesignAChip does
- The preview has worked examples you can open, including a soil sensor, a three template rover and an ambition brief that fails its checks. Every question in the form has plain help.
- Template and plan that usually fit
- Pick the one template that matches your example. You do not need a plan yet, because nothing is for sale.
- When the answer is do not build
- Learning needs no chip. You can work through the record and stop at the do not build result, which is a normal result.
Illustrative, not customers
Examples
What you can check
Security and trust
This page says what is true today and marks anything not yet decided as not yet decided.
The preview collects nothing. Where a point is not decided, this page says not yet decided.
What the preview collects
Nothing. The interest form stores nothing and sends nothing. When you press the button it says that sign up is not live and clears what you typed. The design tool and the checks run in your browser, and what you type stays there. Files you open are read in your browser and are never uploaded. The fingerprint of your file is worked out on your own device.
The pages keep only display settings on your own device, such as your light or dark choice. They send nothing. The preview sets no cookies and has no analytics. If sign up ever goes live, this page must be rewritten before the form accepts anything.
No requests to other sites
No page, style sheet, font or script loads anything from an outside web address. The fonts ship with the site. The only requests the pages make are for the site's own files. The only outside addresses in the data are links to the sources we cite, and they load only if you choose to open one.
A rule in the page tells your browser to refuse any other request. Our own tests open every page, from disk and from a web server, and confirm that every request goes to the site's own address. No independent security review or site audit has been done yet.
Numbers, sources and labels
Every number on the site shows a source, a date and a label. The label says how sure we are. A search summary counts as ESTIMATE at most, and a fetched extract counts as SUPPORTED at most unless the whole page was read. If we do not know, we write UNKNOWN and we do not fill the gap.
A performance number is incomplete unless it answers eleven questions, so we mark it incomplete. A physical limit check stops claims that break known limits. We never state a price we were not given. We never state a recycled content level without a supplier certificate. We never say a chip has been sent for manufacture unless the proper process happened.
How the checker was tested
People approve the big steps
Aizen is an AI system. It drafts, researches, checks arithmetic, runs the checks, writes briefs and quote packs, and keeps records. It does not decide, approve, sign, send, pay, file or certify.
A named person holds each big decision. These are requirements approval, architecture freeze, third party design block acceptance, the commitment to a factory, the final handoff, release to production and any safety sign-off. A person sends every quote request. Aizen never holds a password, key or token. Text found in files or customer fields is treated as data and is never obeyed as an instruction.
Your data and your specification
Where the service will be hosted, who processes your data and how long data is kept are not yet decided. Until storage that is sealed for each account exists and has been reviewed, we advise holding no real customer specification with us.
Whether customer content is ever sent to an AI model provider is not yet decided. Our proposal is that it is not sent until the provider's terms are read and the privacy notice names the provider.
What we cannot do, and what we do not do
- We do not make layouts or silicon, and we do not sell chips. Partners and factories make them. We design at the level of the architecture and the specification.
- Vendors cannot pay for ranking. This preview ranks no vendor.
- We cannot give legal, tax, financial, safety or regulatory advice, and we do not replace a qualified person.
- We cannot clear an export or a sanction. We can only flag a case, and a qualified person decides.
- We cannot promise any performance, cost, schedule, vendor reply, vendor price, export approval, safety approval, freedom to operate or protection of intellectual property.
- An AI system can be wrong, so output made with one is labelled, and calculation results and narrative text are kept apart.
- Our names are not cleared in any trademark register. DesignAChip is not yet a registered company.
What an evidence record is and is not
An evidence record is not a registration. They do different jobs, and this page keeps them apart.
An evidence record is a short fingerprint of your specification with a date note. Tied to an outside time anchor, it can show that a file existed by a date. It does not show who made the file. A registration is a decision by an official body that grants a right. DesignAChip can give you the first quickly, and it points you to the proper channel for the second.
Make an evidence record in your browser
Decided and not yet decided
| Item | State |
|---|---|
| What the preview collects | Nothing, as tested on 26 Oct 2026 |
| Hosting and who runs the server | Not yet decided |
| Payment processor | Not yet decided |
| Privacy notice, terms and cookie statement | Drafts, not in force, not yet reviewed by a lawyer |
| How long data is kept | Not yet decided |
| Whether customer content goes to an AI model provider | Not yet decided |
| Sealed storage of specifications and backups | Designed, not built |
| Independent security review and site audit | Not yet done |
| Where to report a problem | Not yet decided. When it exists it will be shown on this page. |
| Vendor payment rules | Proposed, not yet adopted |
| Refund and cancellation terms | Not yet decided |
| Name clearance | Not done |
| The company | Not yet formed |
Read and check
Resources
Explainers, a glossary, common questions, the market survey and the claims we will not make.
Some of these are ready and some are still being written. Each card says which.
Plain explainers
Nine plain English explainers are written as drafts. Each is 500 to 800 words and ends with a table of every number and its label. They are not published yet.
Planned
Questions and answers
A list of common questions is written as a draft. Each answer shows its source and label. It is not published yet.
Planned
What was found
The survey groups what we found into categories, with a label and a source link for each entry. It says plainly that the total number of companies in this space is UNKNOWN. Where something was not found on the pages read, it says so, and it never says that a competitor lacks it.
What we will not claim
The checks of three ambitions, a trillion fold gain, a hundred million fold cost cut and a hundredfold cheaper first chip, all labelled DERIVED, with the arithmetic shown.
What Aizen does
The ten abilities Aizen brings to DesignAChip, and which are built today.
Template files
The plain files the design tool and the checker read. You can download them.
The nine explainers, in one line each
| Explainer | In one line |
|---|---|
| What is a chip shuttle | How many designs share one production run, what it costs and what you do not get |
| When you should not build a chip | The order to try things, and three signs that a custom chip is not worth it |
| How to read a chip performance claim | The eleven questions that turn a headline number into something you can compare |
| What a recycled content claim needs | The step from a goal to a claim, and what a supplier certificate must show |
| How chip layouts are protected in Malaysia | What the Act says, and why an evidence record is not a registration |
| How to describe your systems for a quote | The inputs vendors look for, and the fixed shape of the answer |
| Mask sets and one-time engineering cost | Why cost figures differ between sources, and five questions to ask about any figure |
| What extreme environment qualification means | Car, space, cold, hot and wet conditions, and what to ask a vendor |
| The three M26 templates | When to use one, when to combine them and why more complex is not better |
How we check claims
- Find the source and read the page, not the headline.
- Give the claim one label. VERIFIED means a primary page read in full. SUPPORTED means a fetched extract or several agreeing sources. ESTIMATE, DERIVED, CONTESTED and UNKNOWN say what they say.
- Show our own arithmetic and mark it DERIVED.
- Write NOT FOUND or UNKNOWN when we did not find it, and never fill a gap from a search snippet.
- Re-read each finished file against the stored results and fix anything the sources do not support.
- A person reads each public claim against its source before it is published. This step is planned and no person holds it yet.
Glossary
Short meanings for words used on this site. A longer glossary is written as a draft and is not published yet.
For people who already know the full specification
Advanced specification form
This is the full form behind the guided design flow. It asks every question the checks use and gives the quote request pack. Most people should use the guided flow instead. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
What was found
Market survey
Honest limits
What we will not claim
Who is doing the work
Aizen's ten abilities
Pick the plan that fits
Plans
Not live yet
Interest form
Sign up is not live yet
This form is a front end stub. It stores nothing and sends nothing. When you press the button the page tells you that sign up is not live, and then forgets what you typed.
Privacy
Nothing is collected yet. This site sets no cookies, has no analytics and makes no request to any address other than its own. It uses the fonts already on your device. Your theme choice and whether you have seen the start screen are kept in your own browser, in local and session storage, and never leave it. If sign up ever goes live, this section must be rewritten before the form accepts anything. See also Security and trust.