I actually want to understand the chip manufacturing process - design, prototyping (using FPGAs, etc), baking process in foundries. And also at least a basic understanding of how IP is managed in chip industry - like "IP core" is a term that I frequently hear but due to the myriad interpretations available online, I don't really understand what an "IP core" really means. Hoping to get useful advice from veterans in the chip industry.
Ask HN: Where do I get started on ASICs, FPGA, RTL, Verilog et. al?
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Re: Ask HN: Where do I get started on ASICs, FPGA, RTL, Verilog et. al?
#2There are three things here that you've intertwined.
Process -- This is the science of creating circuits on silicon wafers using lithography, etching, and doping. There is a large body of knowledge around the physics involved here. Materials science and Physics and Silicon Fabrication are all good places to start.
Chip Design -- This is creating circuits which are run through a tool that can lay them out for you automatically. HDLs teach you to describe the semantics of the hardware in such a way that a tool can infer actual circuits. Generally a solid understanding of digital logic design is a pre-requisite, and then you can learn the more intimate details of timing closure, or floor planning, signal propagation and tradeoffs of density and speed.
IP -- Clearly all of the intellectual property law is a huge body but most of the IP around chips is patent law (how the chips are made) and copyright law (how they are laid out).
Re: Ask HN: Where do I get started on ASICs, FPGA, RTL, Verilog et. al?
#3> And also at least a basic understanding of how IP is managed in chip industry - like "IP core" is a term that I frequently hear but due to the myriad interpretations available online, I don't really understand what an "IP core" really means.
I'm by no means a veteran but my understanding is that "IP core" refers to a design you buy from someone else. Say you want a video encoder on your smart fridge SoC. You can either spend a whole lot of time, manpower and money developing one yourself or you can license the design from someone else who already has one and just dump it in.
You'd only do this when you want to integrate the design into your own (likely mass manufactured) chip. You can also often buy a packaged chip that serves the same function for much less but doing that is a tradeoff. You can do it at very low volume and cost but you potentially lose a bunch of efficiency in terms of space and power.
Re: Ask HN: Where do I get started on ASICs, FPGA, RTL, Verilog et. al?
#4I wouldn't get too hung up on the phrase 'IP core', it's basically the equivalent of a software library. A reusable chunk of silicon or verilog.
If you want to know about how chips are made then I'd highly recommend the book "CMOS Circuit Design and Simulation" by Baker. It's starts off telling you how silicon is etched to make chips, then goes through how MOSFETs work and how to simulate them using SPICE. By the time you're half way through the book you'll know how a static CMOS logic gate works (down to the electrons).
If you'd rather learn something that you'll be able to apply yourself (without building a chip fab) then the place to start is Verilog (or VHDL). asic-world.com has some good tutorials. You can simulate what you've written using Icarus verilog and look at the results using GTKwave. If it works in simulation and you want to put it onto a real FPGA it's then just a matter of fighting the Xilinx/Altera/Lattice tools until then give you a bitstream. If you have enough money (a lot) you could even get a physical ASIC manufactured.
Re: Ask HN: Where do I get started on ASICs, FPGA, RTL, Verilog et. al?
#5Get yourself an FPGA devkit and start making little hardware bits
Re: Ask HN: Where do I get started on ASICs, FPGA, RTL, Verilog et. al?
#6[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Where do I get started on ASICs, FPGA, RTL, Verilog et. al?
#7Get yourself an FPGA devkit and start making little hardware bits
What's the best way for a novice to determine what their needs are? One thing that's been a barrier to entry for me has been fear of vendor lock-in from point of sale with regards to upgrading in the future; ie: purchasing a starter kit by company X but once determining that only company Y supports the feature set. Where there would then require a non-trivial amount devtime would be sunk in re-tooling your code both across hardware and design environments. I was originally really excited to see AWS hosting FPGA instances, but a friend told me that they were charging a heavy premium and only had a limited number of manufacturers.
Re: Ask HN: Where do I get started on ASICs, FPGA, RTL, Verilog et. al?
#8Nand 2 Tetris[1] is a good starting place. You should get a good view of how the different level interact. Coursera have two cources [2][3] that cover the same material as the book
[1] http://nand2tetris.org/ [2] https://www.coursera.org/learn/build-a-computer [3] https://www.coursera.org/learn/nand2tetris2
Re: Ask HN: Where do I get started on ASICs, FPGA, RTL, Verilog et. al?
#9http://www.clifford.at/icestorm/
open source FPGA workflow. ASICs is more tough
Re: Ask HN: Where do I get started on ASICs, FPGA, RTL, Verilog et. al?
#10An ASIC is pretty expensive unless you've got Google money [1]. Start with an FPGA dev board [2] and probably just stick with FPGA. Hell, Amazon has an FPGA instance [3]:
[1] https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/7042/how-muc...