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Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

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Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#111

Post by sukilot »

klhugo wrote: post #109
leojfc wrote: post #53

Strategically, could this be part of a response to Apple silicon? Or put another way, Apple and Google are both responding to Intel/the market’s failure to innovate enough in idiosyncratic manner: - Apple treats lower layers as core, and brings everything in-house; - Google treats lower layers as a threat and tries to open-source and commodify them to undermine competitors. I don’t mean this free fabbing can compete…

Absolutely not. "Apple Silicon" is branding for their own processor. This is a road to an opensource ecosystem in HW design.

That's the same thing parent said, so "Absolutely yes".

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#112

Post by chrismorgan »

ur-whale wrote: post #17

This is fantastic, for many reasons, but the two that come immediately to mind are: - amazingly good for security. - finally the public at large will get to understand *in details* how an ASIC is designed.

Meta: please don’t use preformatted text for lists. It makes reading much harder, especially on narrower displays. Just put a blank line between each item, treat each as a paragraph.

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#113

Post by Nokinside »

leojfc wrote: post #53

Strategically, could this be part of a response to Apple silicon? Or put another way, Apple and Google are both responding to Intel/the market’s failure to innovate enough in idiosyncratic manner: - Apple treats lower layers as core, and brings everything in-house; - Google treats lower layers as a threat and tries to open-source and commodify them to undermine competitors. I don’t mean this free fabbing can compete…

These are not related at all. Only common element is making silicon.

Apple spends $100+ millions to design high performance microarchitecture to high-end process for their own products.

Google gives tiny amount of help to hobbyists so that they can make chips for legacy nodes. Nice thing to do, nothing to do with Apple SoC.

---

Software people in HN constantly confuse two completely different things

(1) Optimized high performance microarchitecture for the latest prosesses and large volumes. This can cost $100s of millions and the work is repeated every few years for a new process. Every design is closely optimized for the latest fab technology.

(2) Generic ASIC design for process that is few generations old. Software costs few $k or $10ks and you can uses the same design long time.

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#115

Post by imtringued »

mhh__ wrote: post #41
est31 wrote: post #6

This is amazing. I think the main reason why open source has taken off is because access to a computer is available to many people, and as cost is negligible, it only required free time and enough dedication + skill to be successful. For hardware though, each compile/edit/run cycle costs money, software often has 5-digit per seat licenses, and thus the number of people with enough resources to pursue this as a hobby…

Not only is the software expensive it's often crap. By which I don't mean, oh no it doesn't look nice - crap as in productivity-harming. For example, Altium Designer is probably the most modern (not most powerful although close) PCB suite and yet despite costing thousands a seat it is a slow, clunky, single-threaded (in 2020) program (somehow uses 20% of a 7700k at 4.6GHz with an empty design). Discord also thinks th…

From what I can tell a lot of parametric design software is also single threaded. I felt like this is was an opportunity where usage of multiple cores could make Freecad stand out a little bit. Except Freecad uses opencascade as their kernel and they require you to sign a CLA just to download the git repository. Considering that barrier to just cloning the code I just decided to not contribute anything. They do offer zip file downloads of the source code but at that point I lost interest.

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#116

Post by jcun4128 »

lnsru wrote: post #5
jcun4128 wrote: post #2

How "bad" is that compared to standard/common 14nm, etc...

I don’t know, why do you refer 14 nm as common. It’s for the newest consumer toys. Regular electronics in your dish washer is made using 65, 90 or even 130 nm process.

yeah maybe 22nm is more common

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#117

Post by jcun4128 »

DCKing wrote: post #20
jcun4128 wrote: post #2

How "bad" is that compared to standard/common 14nm, etc...

130nm was used to make the Athlon XP, Athlon 64, Pentium M, Pentium 4 and PowerPC G5 in the 2001-2003 timeframe [0]. So at the peak of 130nm's performance spectrum, it was able to produce stuff that can still run 2020 software quite okay. The Athlon 64 is probably the best 130nm silicon produced in its heyday and it's in the ballpark of a Raspberry Pi 4 (which has a 28nm SoC) in single core benchmarks. I don't think…

I see I remember using Dimension 4500's that had Pentium 4

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#118

Post by blackrock »

qaute wrote: post #94
blackrock wrote: post #10

I wonder if you can make micro machines at this level? The MEMS thing. I always wondered why you needed gearing mechanisms in a micro machine. Has there ever been a practical application for gears in MEMS?

> I always wondered why you needed gearing mechanisms in a micro machine. Has there ever been a practical application for gears in MEMS? IIRC, Sandia Lab's SUMMiT V process (the source of videos like [1]) was funded in part to make mechanical latches and fail-safes for nuclear weapons, but I'm not sure what's currently in use for obvious reasons. I don't think they found many other practical applications, though expe…

Fascinating, thanks for the info. Some ideas about this:

(1) I wonder if you can make an unpickable lock with MEMS.

Say, if you get a finger print scan, or retinal scan, then the device would need a positive confirmation in order to unlock itself.

I have no idea how practical this is, but it sounds like some kind of Superman genetic authentication system, in order to unlock the information crystals.

(2) The other thing is, can the gears be used to store potential energy? Such as using the microfluidic pumps? Or a microspring?

Where maybe you can use another piezoelectric device, or solar, to provide the electricity to run the gears, in order to store potential energy during peak production hours.

Then, when you need it, you release the potential energy.

The key here might be if you can build a micro electric generator. But I don’t know if you can deposit a pair of opposing micro magnets on a MEMS unit.

But if this can work, then you would need a lot of units, in the tens of billions, in order to produce enough electricity to do something useful.

Re: Google offers free fabbing for 130nm open-source chips

#120

Post by novaRom »

ric2b wrote: post #78
novaRom wrote: post #57

Can someone please tell me how photo-masks are produced? I don't understand how can tiny features be printed at almost the same scale as a final structure? With a laser beam? Say, as an input you have a layer description (schematics) - how can you transfer it to a tiny scale so precisely to produce a mask?

They aren't built at the same scale, they're much larger than the final structure and lenses are used to scale the image down to the desired size. Here's a video form Intel on how they are made: https://youtu.be/u3ws0UebnSE Apparently they use "electron beams", not sure what those are, they sound similar to lasers but with electrons, from this video: https://youtu.be/PWV9pvdRBNY

Wow, this explains why production of a mask takes 5 days (as said in first video):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron-beam_lithography

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