Etched is using ASIC chips. Taalas is using eASIC chips. They are both putting the logic into the hardware instead of using software on top of GPUs. There is the potential to get 100 to 1000 times more energy efficient than more generalized hardware where the software handles the AI.

Etched has Transformer specific Application-Specific Integrated Circuits – ASIC

A transformer ASIC is a specialized chip that directly integrates the transformer architecture into the hardware. An application-specific integrated circuit is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficiency video codec.

A successful commercial application of gate array circuitry was found in the low-end 8-bit ZX81 and ZX Spectrum personal computers, introduced in 1981 and 1982. These were used by Sinclair Research (UK) essentially as a low-cost I/O solution aimed at handling the computer's graphics.

Customization occurred by varying a metal interconnect mask. Gate arrays had complexities of up to a few thousand gates; this is now called mid-scale integration. Later versions became more generalized, with different base dies customized by both metal and polysilicon layers. Some base dies also include random-access memory (RAM) elements.

In the mid-1980s, a designer would choose an ASIC manufacturer and implement their design using the design tools available from the manufacturer.

By the late 1990s, logic synthesis tools became available. Such tools could compile HDL descriptions into a gate-level netlist. Standard-cell integrated circuits (ICs) are designed in the following conceptual stages referred to as electronics design flow, although these stages overlap significantly in practice.