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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

#321

Post by vvanders »

kickopotomus wrote: post #279
wrycoder wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be true for analog/mixed signal design, but not for CMOS. The design rules are built into the CAD. The design itself is a immense network of switches. Not having an advanced degree doesn’t mean you can’t master complexity. It’s the same as with software.

Same issues apply to digital ICs as well. The design is much more than just the rules encoded into the logic. What size node are you targeting? Is there an integrated clock? What frequency? What I/O does the IC have? What are the electrical and thermal specifications for the IC? Does it need to be low Iq? What about the pinout? What package? How do you want to structure the die? There are a lot of factors involved wi…

Signal integrity and analog design start to share a lot of similarity as you start pushing around the edges.

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

#322

Post by sixothree »

_bxg1 wrote: post #299
Nokinside wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hig…

> Nice thing to do I don't believe Google does anything because it's a "nice thing to do". There's some angle here. The angle could just be spurring general innovation in this area, which they'll benefit from indirectly down the line, but in one way or another this plays to their interests.

Google has never created a product that does not collect data in a unique manner apart from its other products.

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

#323

Post by klyrs »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #232
Taek wrote: post #151

I've spent some time in the chip industry. It is awful, backwards, and super far behind. I didn't appreciate the full power of open source until I saw an industry that operates without it. Want a linter for your project? That's going to be $50k. Also, it's an absolutely terrible linter by software standards. In software, linters combine the best ideas from thousands of engineers across dozens of companies building on…

I've also worked on the hardware side a bit as well as in EDA (Electronic Design Automation)- the software used to design hardware. Since you already commented on the hardware side of things, I'll comment on the EDA side. The EDA industry is also very backwards and highly insular - it felt like an old boys club. When I worked in EDA in the late aughts we were still using a version of gcc from about 2000. They did not…

FWIW a lot of c++ developers see std:: and TODO as synonyms. OTOH, having used some of Xilinx's tool, I'd be terrified to read the internals.

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

#324

Post by chubot »

Taek wrote: post #151

I've spent some time in the chip industry. It is awful, backwards, and super far behind. I didn't appreciate the full power of open source until I saw an industry that operates without it. Want a linter for your project? That's going to be $50k. Also, it's an absolutely terrible linter by software standards. In software, linters combine the best ideas from thousands of engineers across dozens of companies building on…

Yes 100%. Maybe software is really unique in this regard, and HN and such forums are a gift?

Tangent: I've noticed this problem in dentistry and sleep apnea! The methods of knowledge transfer in the field seem to be incredibly inefficient? Or there are tons of dentists not learning new things? (I recall a few dentists on HN -- I would be interested in any comment either way on this.)

The reason I say this is that many patients can't tolerate CPAP (>50% by some measures). There are other solutions, and judging by conversations with friends and family, dentists and doctors don't even know about them!

----

My dentist gave me one of these alternative treatments for sleep apnea, which was very effective. It's mandibular advancement device (oral appliance). Even the name is bad! They have a marketing and branding problem.

Random: Apparently Joe Rogan's dentist did a similar thing with a different device which he himself invented. Rogan mentioned it 3 times on the air.

So basically it appears to me that practitioners in this field don't exchange information in the same way that software practitioners do (to say nothing of exchanging the equivalent of working code, which is possible in theory).

I looked it up and there are apparently 200K dentists in the United States. It seems like a good area for a common forum. I think the problem is that dentists probably compete too much rather than cooperate? There is no financial incentive to set up a site of free knowledge exchange.

Related recent threads I wrote about this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23666639 (related to bruxism, there seem to be a lot of dentists who don't seem to understand this, as I know multiple people with sleep apnea and bruxism who don't understand the connection)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23435964 (the book Jaws)

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

#325

Post by vvanders »

gentleman11 wrote: post #278
Taek wrote: post #151

I've spent some time in the chip industry. It is awful, backwards, and super far behind. I didn't appreciate the full power of open source until I saw an industry that operates without it. Want a linter for your project? That's going to be $50k. Also, it's an absolutely terrible linter by software standards. In software, linters combine the best ideas from thousands of engineers across dozens of companies building on…

I am finding game development to be a tiny bit like this also: very little open source, lots of home-made clunky code, lots of NDAs and secrets. Generally, a much worse developer experience with worse tooling overall. To play devils advocate, it this makes game dev harder, which isn’t entirely bad because there is already a massive number of games being made that can’t sell, so it reduces competition a tiny bit. Also…

That depends a lot on platform and engine. X360 development was still one of the best damn environments on dedicated hardware I've ever worked on. PIX was nothing short of amazing and Visual Studio is still a bar I haven't seen touched from and IDE perspective.

Compare that with something like Android where I'm lucky if I can get GDB to hit a single breakpoint on a good day.

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

#326

Post by dasudasu »

StillBored wrote: post #295

Because apparently no one remembers the other "free" fab service. https://www.themosisservice.com/university-support Previously MOSIS would run select a few student/research designs to go along with the commercial MPW runs, frequently on pretty modern fabs. I'm not really sure how much they still run. (oh here is the MOSIS/TSMC runs for this year https://www.mosis.com/db/pubf/fsched?ORG=TSMC )

But this one is open to hobbyists. If you're doing a graduate degree in ASIC design and your group doesn't have the funds to do simple fab runs, you're probably in a somewhat questionable program to begin with.

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

#327

Post by wrycoder »

kickopotomus wrote: post #279
wrycoder wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be true for analog/mixed signal design, but not for CMOS. The design rules are built into the CAD. The design itself is a immense network of switches. Not having an advanced degree doesn’t mean you can’t master complexity. It’s the same as with software.

Same issues apply to digital ICs as well. The design is much more than just the rules encoded into the logic. What size node are you targeting? Is there an integrated clock? What frequency? What I/O does the IC have? What are the electrical and thermal specifications for the IC? Does it need to be low Iq? What about the pinout? What package? How do you want to structure the die? There are a lot of factors involved wi…

I suggest you won't learn those things in college. You RTFM and get some experience on real life design projects.

Now, if you are in CMOS process design or responsible for the CAD software itself and its design rules, it helps (a lot!) to be a physicist. For that you need the MS and PhD training.

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

#328

Post by wrycoder »

vvanders wrote: post #321
kickopotomus wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same issues apply to digital ICs as well. The design is much more than just the rules encoded into the logic. What size node are you targeting? Is there an integrated clock? What frequency? What I/O does the IC have? What are the electrical and thermal specifications for the IC? Does it need to be low Iq? What about the pinout? What package? How do you want to structure the die? There are a lot of factors involved wi…

Signal integrity and analog design start to share a lot of similarity as you start pushing around the edges.

Absolutely. At the bottom, it's all analog!

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

#330

Post by chii »

mannykoum wrote: post #215
mercer wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the principles underlying FOSS are found everywhere. It's just that the idea of 'markets' and 'transactions' being the ubiquitous thing has infected our thinking.

Wholeheartedly agree. In parts of society where our distorted ideas of "productivity" and "success" are absent, people share more freely. The island where my family is from comes to mind (Crete, Greece). There—in the rural areas—people were able to deal with the 2007-2008 crisis a lot more effectively than they did in the cities—esp. compared to Athens. What I observed is that if someone didn't have enough, the rest…

but does this only work when the number of people in the tribe is low, and everyone has some social accountability to each other?

The problem of a free-rider is ever present, and in big cities, that problem is evident and thus you don't get the sort of community effort that you see in a small village.

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