- 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've probably worked on 70 chips over the last 30 years.
Tape out time always sucks. I'm in physical design which is fixing all the timing violations, DRC violations, LVS errors, and dealing with late design changes.
Working 80 to 100 hours a week for a month really sucks and makes you wonder why you didn't go into software.
When you combine it with a fixed shuttle date like in the article it is even worse because if you miss that date it might be another 1-2 months for the next shuttle instead of just a day for day slip when you control all the masks.
- Incredible dive into something I’ve only dreamed of doing, this post is definitely one of my favorites. If the author is reading this, would love to know where you got those chairs!
- > 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!
by robinsonb5
0 subcomment
- A hugely entertaining blog post, despite subject matter that could easily result in very dry reading.
by saidinesh5
2 subcomments
- 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.
- I'm shocked that SRAMs would be considered a luxury item for open silicon. They're essential for building anything that would be commercially viable, since area is far from free.
by chaosprint
1 subcomments
- some of my favorite projects from tiny tapeout:
https://tinytapeout.com/chips/tt05/tt_um_rejunity_sn76489
https://tinytapeout.com/chips/tt07/tt_um_rejunity_ay8913
https://tinytapeout.com/chips/tt04/tt_um_morningjava_top
by SV_BubbleTime
1 subcomments
- > 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.
by SilverElfin
0 subcomment
- As someone who isn’t familiar with the deep details of the hardware side of the AI industry, I’m curious if these chips are “easy” to write AI software for, or if there is a big barrier. How significant is Nvidia’s moat on the software layer, which I often see talked about in articles, when people seem to be willing to adopt AI accelerators. And if AI accelerators can be adopted, why aren’t other competitors to Nvidia (AMD, Intel, etc) able to break in?
by lesser-shadow
0 subcomment
- [dead]
by smi-nvidia
0 subcomment
- [dead]
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