Ask HN: NYC Community Chip Fabs?

2 points·caaaadr··2 comments

I'm interested in experimenting with designing a CPU and GPU, so I was curious what my options are for manufacturing and iterating on this kind of thing

For physical manufacturing, is there something like makerspaces or community biotech labs https://www.genspace.org/ in NYC? I ask about NYC cause that's closer to me

Or is simulation the only real way to go as an individual who is experimenting?

Thanks for your help :)

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Getting significant silicon fabricated is still outside of hobbyist territory. Programs like Tiny Tapeout exist, but the available area and feature size are not "build your own GPU" material.

https://efabless.com/tinytapeout

FPGAs are likely your best bet to start out, although large ones can still get very expensive very fast. You can start out by learning a design language (eg Verilog) and testing your designs in simulation without buying any hardware.

Makes sense that creating anywhere near parity to current tech is out of reach for most people, that's unfortunate but was worth a shot I guess haha

Thanks for the link to tinytapeout! It looks great to actualize once I have a more concrete idea of a chip design

Simulations are the way to go for now I guess, the most interesting part of this exploration is trying to just create strange ISAs I suppose, so it will be nice to iterate faster in the software plane before going to physical

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