Design specification: The cornerstone of an ASIC collaboration

By Barry Lai

December 5, 2025

Engaging with an ASIC development partner can take many forms. The intended chip may be as simple as a microcontroller, as sophisticated as an AI-based edge computing system-on-chip (SoC), or even a large language model (LLM) AI accelerator for data centers. The customer design team may include experienced ASIC design, verification, and test engineers or comprise only application experts. Each customer relationship is different.

Yet they all share one fundamental need. The customer and the ASIC developer must agree, in greater detail, on what they are trying to build. That is the role of design specification documents. At Faraday, this document is the cornerstone of conversations between customers and chip design teams, covering critical decisions throughout the design process. The topics can range from initial feasibility estimation through sign-off and beyond.

If the design specification is so important, an obvious question arises: how do you construct a specification that will result in a successful ASIC design experience? However, the real answer is that a successful design specification is a joint effort between the customer and the ASIC development partner.

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