Even the best built-in circuit (IC) chips are insanely tough to manufacture. Complicated chips, like trendy CPUs, require many, many billions of {dollars} in tools and facility infrastructure to fabricate. As such, hobbyists and small companies have nearly no hope of creating their very own chips. However wafer.house is skirting that difficulty by supplying you with the power to get in on a customized chip order.
Right here’s the deal: you again the wafer.house GF180MCU Run 1 crowdfunding run on Crowd Provide and design your personal customized chip. You then give the organizers your design by the deadline and so they’ll embody it of their upcoming die manufacturing run. The wafers will then be manufactured by GlobalFoundries at their facility in Singapore. Afterwards, the wafers will probably be sliced up and dies will probably be delivered to backers.
Whereas wafer.house is making this as simple as doable, it isn’t for the faint of coronary heart. You will want to know find out how to design your chip utilizing the GF180MCU open-source PDK and there received’t be any help or assist accessible. It’ll additionally require an actual funding of between $2,000 and $8,500, relying on precisely what deliverables you need.
However this can be a uncommon alternative to really get chip dies made with out particular connections or actually severe funding.
These wafers will probably be made with the GlobalFoundries 180nm course of. Not precisely leading edge, however greater than ok for the overwhelming majority of designs. The design envelope is 3.88mm × 5.07mm (19.67mm²) and might have 5 metallic layers. Extra constraint info and particulars can be found on the Crowd Provide marketing campaign web page.
