I might get some hate for this, but Google seems to be doing some really cool things, like in fintech as well as this silicon project. Google Finance is one of the only players I've seen with an interest of opening things up when so much of the industry is about pushing others out and restricting access. Like for example the CME deal, to open source live, low latency stock market data. Bloomberg might let you rent it for 25k a year if you're lucky. Google? Yeah just hook into the websocket bro, it's free.<p>Someone's gotta do it<p>Most of the stock market data the avg person sees is 15 minutes delayed by request of the NYSE, and in a world where trades are reaching the 3 millisecond and below mark, that's a very long time. So Google opening up what could be <20ms data might be able to help some applications. Not saying it's a silver bullet either.<p>I wish they would take on even more big projects that need to be tackled. Like I want to see a google branded remote controlled barge out in the pacific garbage patch that the public is controlling through a google web app or some other insane, good projects. Idk when you deal with finance companies all day, even google seems moral.<p>However, it's not looking good this quarter for all tech cos
When the first open SkyWater 130nm PDK came out, with Google paying for free shuttle runs I did wonder how long the money would keep going. I assumed they'd fund a handful of shuttles in the hope that kick starts wider usage.<p>With this announcement and the other SkyWater 90nm they're bringing out (<a href="https://opensource.googleblog.com/2022/07/SkyWater-and-Google-expand-open-source-program-to-new-90nm-technology.html" rel="nofollow">https://opensource.googleblog.com/2022/07/SkyWater-and-Googl...</a>) it looks like they're keen to fund this for the long haul which is fantastic news.<p>I think there's great potential in open silicon but precious little of it around right now. Open tooling is still in early development stages in particular for implementation flows (i.e. actually producing a silicon layout from your RTL design). Development here is stifled by how closed this world is. Open PDKs, that can be used for real chips, are a great boon and I hope will really accelerate developments.
Very excited to see another foundry join up! Welcome GlobalFoundries!<p>Last week SkyWater announced a 90nm PDK, which is smaller than the current SkyWater 130nm. Also crucially, this one is FDSOI (fully-depleted silicon on insulator), which keeps chips from leaking power, meaning this should be much more ideal for any kind of mobile always-on design. Neat.<p>And now comes GF's 180MCU PDK. At first, it's like: this is bigger, what the heck! But it's designed for mixed signal & power designs, like Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMICs).<p>Really neat having something a little smaller and something a little bigger right near where we started. I really hope some of the existing people who've done open chip design on the existing shuttles get to make similar-ish chips on the new bigger & smaller processes & can nicely characterize some of the performance differences.<p>This all just makes so much sense. Making sure chipmaking is a healthy, robust, creative, growing industry is in everyone's interest. Without efforts like this, it feels like the industry is at risk of too much consolidation, of everyone getting bought out and/or giving up, and there not being vibrant chipmaking at all. The wave of buyouts across the 201X's was shocking. I continue to think part of the chipmaking crunch was just that there are so many less independent entities now; the diversity of the ecosystem is way down.
Important note: this is a <i>high voltage</i> process for things like power+battery management chips. It is not a general logic process. The press release really should mention this.<p>The transistors on this process are very slow and power-hungry, even for such an old process -- the lowest rated supply voltage for this process is 3.3 volts whereas 1.8 volts is typical for 180nm. That's ~3.35x the active power consumption and slower switching speeds due to higher threshhold. It's meant for people who had 350nm designs (mid-1990s) and want to migrate them with the minimum possible effort (nearly all fabs have shut down their 350nm lines).<p>It is totally awesome that Google were able to convince GF to release this PDK! But they should be more up-front about the fact that this is a High Voltage process; most people won't notice the "MCU" at the end of the process name or know what it stands for. Their announcement about a 90nm process with Skywater last week is a big deal; this not so much, unless it's just the first of a series of process releases from GloFo.
Super excited for this! Right now I’m working on a project to build open source DNA synthesis chips (if deployed right, drops DNA synthesis cost by 100-500x market price), and efabless with their tools created with Google’s support have simply enabled the project to even be possible. I am grateful to Google for doing this.
What's happening with Taiwan/TSMC right now is...<p>china is adamant about taiwan, like putin about the donbass. So it is not unreasonable to think that what is happening for the donbass, will happen for taiwan sooner or later.<p>maybe it is time for top-notch foundries to move out (and the ppl who would require more freedom that the china regime tolerate, like in hong-kong).
Been a while since I was in the semiconductor industry, but it looks like this open-sourcing is intended to free up the ecosystem from dependence on Cadence EDA. Nice, could open up opportunity for creation of a lot of cottage fabless semiconductor startups. (does anyone known whether Cadence had ever gotten on the freemium offering model?)