The thing I love about blog posts like these is how it reminds me that the tech world is a vast ocean that encompasses so many disciplines; it's not all full stack web development.
Related: I did not understand 95% of what she wrote.
I wrote here a couple days ago: "For a Hacker News degenerate, everything in the world revolves around bean-counting B2B SaaS CRUD crapps, but it doesn't mean it's all there is to the world, right?"
I didn't even know that 180nm was still a thing but clearly it is because apparently the cost difference is like USD 100M for 180nm vs USD 10B or more for the latest tech?
Is it true that we will likely have these 180nm chips for things like light bulbs for the foreseeable future?
More thank light bulbs.
As you have correctly pointed it out, its a matter of economics: 180nm is CHEAP!
So a lot more things become economically viable, think of all the weird specialized ASICs that used to be to expensive to build.
Yes, actually 180 nm still represents a sizable amount of the market, in terms of volume! In more niche applications where chips contain lots of analog functionlity, you can still find plenty of designs being done in 180, 130, 110, and 65 nm. Most corporate designs don't disclose this, but I'd venture to guess the majority of integrated circuits in your home are made on these larger "process nodes". I work in 65nm and 130nm, for example. Free to ask if you want to know more!
I'm not OP, but perhaps you, or somebody else here, could answer my question, albeit one that is slightly off-topic. In the recent years, in part courtesy of cryptoindustry investment, there were many advancements in zero-knowledge mathematics and applied cryptography. I've been on-and-off researching computational approaches to liquid democracy[1], on the off-chance that we may one day apply it in my country, Ukraine, and I came to conclusion that open hardware-as-public good are table stakes to that end. The modern computers are way too complex, and the trust in them is at an all-time low. To bring computation into politics—it's a tall order. However, if we could buy a fab, design some hardware transparently, allow inspections from civil groups and scientists, maybe that could work... What kind of costs are we looking at for establishing something like 130nm process, and would it be possible to buy out the necessary IP, too, so that everything could be done in the open?
Does this even work longterm? I'd like to think transparent-by-design hardware manufacturing is not a pipe dream, but if that's the case, I would hate to give it too much thought.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know how many of the tools involved in the Tiny Tapeout project are available open source?
Especially in the project roadmap section..
The licences for proprietary EDA tools are very expensive it seems and most EDA people i talked to didn't really care for any open source tools - as their companies paid for the licenses.
You're right that most professional designers historically haven't cared about open source tooling. But this is starting to change, largely because of the recent existence of open PDKs and the creation of better open tools like OpenROAD. I am a PhD student working in chip design, and about 90% of my work is done using open tools. You can see an image of one chip here, for example.
> So when the opportunity arose to join an experimental shuttle using global foundries 180nm for FREE I jumped onto the opportunity and designed my own JTAG!
> Because the official JTAG spec lives behind the impregnable IEEE paywall, a castle in which I am not permitted to set foot as a result of not having paid its lord my dues, the verification of the JTAG TAP was actually quite interesting.
The thing I love about blog posts like these is how it reminds me that the tech world is a vast ocean that encompasses so many disciplines; it's not all full stack web development.
Related: I did not understand 95% of what she wrote.
I wrote here a couple days ago: "For a Hacker News degenerate, everything in the world revolves around bean-counting B2B SaaS CRUD crapps, but it doesn't mean it's all there is to the world, right?"
I didn't even know that 180nm was still a thing but clearly it is because apparently the cost difference is like USD 100M for 180nm vs USD 10B or more for the latest tech?
Is it true that we will likely have these 180nm chips for things like light bulbs for the foreseeable future?
More thank light bulbs. As you have correctly pointed it out, its a matter of economics: 180nm is CHEAP! So a lot more things become economically viable, think of all the weird specialized ASICs that used to be to expensive to build.
Yes, actually 180 nm still represents a sizable amount of the market, in terms of volume! In more niche applications where chips contain lots of analog functionlity, you can still find plenty of designs being done in 180, 130, 110, and 65 nm. Most corporate designs don't disclose this, but I'd venture to guess the majority of integrated circuits in your home are made on these larger "process nodes". I work in 65nm and 130nm, for example. Free to ask if you want to know more!
Thanks for offering. Do you do analog design, and which market niche are you targeting: low cost per part or something else?
I'm not OP, but perhaps you, or somebody else here, could answer my question, albeit one that is slightly off-topic. In the recent years, in part courtesy of cryptoindustry investment, there were many advancements in zero-knowledge mathematics and applied cryptography. I've been on-and-off researching computational approaches to liquid democracy[1], on the off-chance that we may one day apply it in my country, Ukraine, and I came to conclusion that open hardware-as-public good are table stakes to that end. The modern computers are way too complex, and the trust in them is at an all-time low. To bring computation into politics—it's a tall order. However, if we could buy a fab, design some hardware transparently, allow inspections from civil groups and scientists, maybe that could work... What kind of costs are we looking at for establishing something like 130nm process, and would it be possible to buy out the necessary IP, too, so that everything could be done in the open?
Does this even work longterm? I'd like to think transparent-by-design hardware manufacturing is not a pipe dream, but if that's the case, I would hate to give it too much thought.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy
This project exists, here it is: https://opentitan.org/
> aka: For those not living in 2026, we have uncovered a new clue to the mystery of where all the low-power DRAM chips have suddenly vanished to!
I love the writing style!
Out of curiosity, does anyone know how many of the tools involved in the Tiny Tapeout project are available open source?
Especially in the project roadmap section..
The licences for proprietary EDA tools are very expensive it seems and most EDA people i talked to didn't really care for any open source tools - as their companies paid for the licenses.
You're right that most professional designers historically haven't cared about open source tooling. But this is starting to change, largely because of the recent existence of open PDKs and the creation of better open tools like OpenROAD. I am a PhD student working in chip design, and about 90% of my work is done using open tools. You can see an image of one chip here, for example.
https://github.com/kcaisley/frida
You can do the entire project roadmap with entirely open source tools and all the tiny tapeout tools are open source.
> So when the opportunity arose to join an experimental shuttle using global foundries 180nm for FREE I jumped onto the opportunity and designed my own JTAG!
In case anyone wants a preview of what to expect.
> Because the official JTAG spec lives behind the impregnable IEEE paywall, a castle in which I am not permitted to set foot as a result of not having paid its lord my dues, the verification of the JTAG TAP was actually quite interesting.