skywater-pdk VS wokwi-verilog-gds-test

Preferably Intel compatible or able to run Linux? Something I can build in my garage or in a simple microprocessor fab.

https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk

It looks neat, but the process node is 1 um with 3 metal layers.

The open Skywater PDK is 130 nm : https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk (though I don't know how reliable the PDK is?)

From working in a somewhat related discipline, the PDKs for the high end nodes (think tsmc N16 and lower) are quite hard to obtain and require your org to pass security audit. In addition to that the cadence licenses are priced very much for a big-org rather than a startup.

Does your chip absolutely need a modern node? I'm assuming you've seen the open source skywater pdk, but here it is just in case. https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk

If you need a free PDK, check out: https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk

That would be really neat, but I haven't seen anyone even make a CMOS imager on SKY130.

https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk

One could make an array of thermopiles, like the hacker that made their own imager out of discrete diodes (digiOBSCURA) . But each pixel would cost $7.

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/excelitas-technol...

One might be able to make an array of thermistors (possibly with active cooling using a peltier) like the diycamera (digiOBSCURA) below. Might be an application of combining many RC oscillators in a tree and recovering the signal with an FFT. I have a gut feeling this is possible, but haven't show it.

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/panasonic-electro...

https://github.com/IdleHandsProject/diycamera (digiOBSCURA)

One could experiment with microbolometers on tinytapeout. https://elicit.org/search?q=cmos+microbolometer

https://tinytapeout.com/

Unlike x86_64 which can only legally be produced by two and one-quarter companies, RISC-V is a permissively open-sourced ISA so anyone can make a chip. Literally, you can download Verilog of Berkeley Rocket cores from Github and run it on an FPGA, or prep it to send to SkyWater to fab at 130nm.

Taping out an actual chip inevitably involves IP that's not yours, e.g. the standard cell library and other 'physical' IP like memories and flash. You cannot open source that as it is not yours and in general the owners of it won't want to open source it either (though there are exceptions e.g. the Skywater 130nm PDK https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk).

In OpenTitan we've built all the 'logical' IP ourselves from the ground up. This is the Verilog RTL you can see in our repository but you need the 'physical' IP to make a real chip. We haven't built any physical IP so we need to get it from the traditional industry sources which means traditional industry licensing (i.e. very much not open).

What Tiny Tapeout is doing is amazing. Who would have thought that makers and students could have their own chip design made real for so little money?

The tools look amazing as well. You'll won't design the next Intel CPU on that 130nm process but to think that the Z80 will fit on 0.064 mm2 is just amazing.

It's great that there will still be an alternative to the official chip now that it won't be manufactured any more.

Now I want that gorgeous mauve ceramic package with a gold-plated cover over the chip...

https://twitter.com/l_vanek/status/1783557817133039738/photo...

https://tinytapeout.com/

https://tinytapeout.com/ now lest you purchase additional tiles for $50, each tile supports about 1k digital logic gates.

Next one closes June 1.

https://tinytapeout.com/faq/

You might enjoy this talk from the last Latchup on Wave Pipelining

https://fossi-foundation.org/latch-up/2024#riding-the-wave-b...

https://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall01/cs597a/w...

Tinytapeout 6 closes in a couple of weeks https://tinytapeout.com not too late to knock out your own chip.

The basic idea is that you buy a chunk of a die, your design's pins get multiplexed to the outside, you pay a bit extra and get a dev board

Chips take time - I taped out my 2 TinyTapeout CPU designs over a year ago, the board arrived a couple of months ago, TT3 is (as I understand) almost in the mail (I have a PDP8 there), and TT4 silicon has just come back (I have a RISCV subset there), TT5 is at the fab, and TT6 tapes out in 2 weeks.

Real silicon works like this, you start on a (big) design, do the creative stuff for a couple of months, for a year you test it to hell, by the time you tapeout you're done with it, then you start on the next design, about the time you're in the middle if doing the fun creative bit the old silicon comes back

The easiest way to try Skywater PDK is through TinyTapeout: https://tinytapeout.com/ -- highly recommended.

If you sign up for TinyTapeout [1], you can design a small digital circuit and have it manufactured on actual silicon for about a 100 dollars. It will be the same as your scenario, where everyone gets a tiny patch on the larger chip. You get the chip at the end.

[1] https://tinytapeout.com/ No affiliation, but participated in an earlier run.

Then move onto things like https://tinytapeout.com/ to get your first silicon fabricated.

That would be really neat, but I haven't seen anyone even make a CMOS imager on SKY130.

https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk

One could make an array of thermopiles, like the hacker that made their own imager out of discrete diodes (digiOBSCURA) . But each pixel would cost $7.

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/excelitas-technol...

One might be able to make an array of thermistors (possibly with active cooling using a peltier) like the diycamera (digiOBSCURA) below. Might be an application of combining many RC oscillators in a tree and recovering the signal with an FFT. I have a gut feeling this is possible, but haven't show it.

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/panasonic-electro...

https://github.com/IdleHandsProject/diycamera (digiOBSCURA)

One could experiment with microbolometers on tinytapeout. https://elicit.org/search?q=cmos+microbolometer

https://tinytapeout.com/