ASIC development tools have often been inaccessible due to cost and complexity. Even as free, open-source tools have become available, the complexity of building and installing the tools has slowed their use by would-be designers.

A challenge in making ASIC development more accessible has been to provide free, easy-to-use development tools. Thankfully development of cloud-based tools using open-source software are making chip design easier than ever.

In June 2022, I had the chance to talk with @Proppy, a Tokyo-based Google engineer who’s enabling people to collaborative ASIC in the cloud with Jupyter and Colab notebooks.

An exciting new opportunity for developing open-source silicon reached fruition at the end of 2022!

GlobalFoundries (GF) teamed up with Google to fund open-source projects using GF’s foundry and their open-source 180nm PDK GF180.

Open-source PDKs like GF180 and Skywater 130nm are essential for making silicon design more accessible. To now have GlobalFoundries involved with fabricating designs will hopefully mean increased opportunities to turn designs into silicon.

GF180’s first multi-project wafer (MPW) tapeout was in December 2022, and several people from the Zero to ASIC and Tiny Tapeout communities were able to submit designs. Here are some highlights:

Using the Tiny User Project tool, people can quickly submit a Tiny Tapeout design to the MPW lottery. The low barrier to entry makes this a great tool to try variations on a design, test faster I/O speeds on an MPW tapeout, or simply compare tapeout processes using a different submission venue.

@Proppy developed the an easy-to-use tool as an extension to the Tiny Tapeout flow.

Proppy’s template repository uses GitHub actions to add a design to the Efabless Caravel User Project. The actions automatically perform the steps requried to harden the design, generate the necessary GDS files, and even generate a convenient GDS viewer. Additionally, the actions output useful reports on cell resource utilization, manufacturability errors, and the precheck results.

I’m happy to announce that Tiny Tapeout 2 was successfully submitted for manufacture in December 2022! 164 designs were included on the tapeout.

Update! Tiny Tapeout 2 chips are back and working!

If you’re unfamiliar, Tiny Tapeout is an educational project that makes it easier and cheaper than ever to get your digital designs manufactured on a real chip! We had a first trial, Tiny Tapeout in September 2022 that was destined for MPW7.

I am excited to introduce a grant for the Zero to ASIC course.

The grant will provide a Silicon-level ticket for selected participants. Two grants will be awarded per month.

Course goals

This course aims to revolutionize open-source silicon by training engineers, hobbyists and enthusiasts to make their own ASICs. During the course, you will design a circuit that will be submitted to the Google lottery MPW to be manufactured in silicon!

We submitted for MPW8! Special congratulations to Adrian Wong for the course submission!

We still managed to get 4 projects in the submission…not bad for a deadline of New Year’s Eve.

The projects include a partial implementation of an L1 GPS tracking channel by Adrian Wong, a Simon Says game implementated by Uri Shaked, and 2 demo submissions (frequency counter and RGB mixer) from me.

Here’s the github repo for the group submission and the Efabless project.

SiliWiz will help you get a basic understanding of how semiconductors work and are manufactured at a fundamental level. It’s a free and open source tool that you can play with in your browser.

Aims

• Draw your own logic gate and understand how that gate would be manufactured in a foundry.
• Learn how the gate is built out of the fundamental circuit elements used in chip design
• Understand how the drawings are used to manufacture the chip
• Be aware of some of SiliWiz’s limitations and simplifications

Lessons

We have a set of free lessons that guide you through from drawing and simulating resistors all the way up to a CMOS inverter.

Welcome to the September 2022 monthly update!

Here are the main topics from last month:

• MPW7 submission,
• MPW2 updates,
• Job posting at E-Fabless,
• New videos,
• Is it the end for UVM? and
• Rendering GDS files with Blender or in your browser

MPW7

The deadline for MPW7 was the 14th of September and the Zero to ASIC course submitted another set of projects. Special shout out to Farhad, Peng and James who are all first time tape outs on the project. Well done everyone!

The 3D structures created within a silicon die are spectacular to see.

Thanks to Maximo (@maxiborga on Twitter), there’s now a video for 3D rendering ASIC designs enabling anyone to convert their ASIC design into a beautiful 3D rendering.

3D-rendered chip in Blender

His walkthrough shows how to convert GDS to STL files, enabling you to import the files in image editing software like Blender.