Tiny Tapeout 06 - Does anyone build with logic gates?

Maker Talk
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What kind of a custom chip would you build with 1000 gates? Now you can prototype your own design in real silicon by sharing the tooling and fabrication cost with other ‘maker’ designs. Tiny Tapeout is a multi-project chip (MPC) with an open toolchain allowing anyone to participate. For about $300 (or $150 early bird) you get 160 x 100 um of space on an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) and a demo board. Everyone’s design is accessible to everyone with a chip.

The easiest way to get started is to use Wokwi in a browser to create your design. This and a GitHub account are about all you need. I’ve got one tile reserved and about 24 days to complete my design. It’s amazing how accessible this technology has become.

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The problem with all of these “open source” VLSI projects is that they are “digital only”.

If I only need digital, FPGAs fit the bill with a lot less grief.

What we really need is a full-custom VLSI flow so that you can throw around analog constructs. There are lots of interesting things you can do with <100 transistors if you have analog constructs.

Alas, nobody has any tools to pull that off. Extraction and DRC are ferociously expensive tools.

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Everything’s analog if you watch it closely enough :slight_smile:

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