Tim Ansell and Leo Moser are getting ready to launch the primary manufacturing run for wafer.area, a small-scale semiconductor fabrication service that may ship you 1,000 models of your personal chip design for a fraction of the price of a standard method — by profiting from multi-project wafer (MPW) layouts.
“Because of open PDKs [Process Design Kits, which convert designs into the format required by a foundry], advancing open‑supply EDA [Electronic Design Automation tools, used to create said designs], and packages like Tiny Tapeout, it is by no means been simpler to design a chip,” Ansell and Moser explains of their startup. “With wafer.area, you’ll be able to simply flip a design into actual, working chips. We offer pooled fabrication with clear specs, an automatic submission system, and a cargo of actual silicon you’ll be able to maintain, probe, and ship to different folks.”
wafer.area guarantees to do for mid-scale chip manufacturing what OSH Park did for PCB manufacturing. (📷: wafer.area)
Historically, designing and fabrication a chip prices hundreds of thousands of {dollars} — and often includes signing non-disclosure agreements with the intention to entry the method design package required to show your creation into one thing manufacturable. The expansion of open PDKs, which offer entry to older course of nodes beneath permissive licensing, has begun to flip that on its head — as demonstrated by Tiny Tapeout, Matt Venn’s challenge to increase chip design and manufacturing to as broad an viewers as doable.
Tiny Tapeout, although, delivers solely a single chip to every participant, albeit one which incorporates each challenge submitted throughout that exact manufacturing run — and all submitted designs should be launched beneath an open {hardware} license. Ansell and Moser’s wafer.area goals larger: these submitting designs, open or closed, for inclusion will obtain both 1,000 uncooked silicon dies that includes their chip design or 1,000 wire-bonded chip-on-board (COB) package deal — sufficient for a small manufacturing run of units.
“Bear in mind PCBs earlier than OSH Park? Orders have been painful: opaque quotes, setup charges, massive MOQs, lengthy waits, and DIY panelization,” Ansell and Moser declare. “Then pooling providers like OSH Park fastened it with predictable pricing, frequent runs, and no‑nonsense logistics. wafer.area brings that shift to silicon.”
All of the chips are constructed utilizing GlobalFoundries’ GF180MCU mixed-signal course of, and supply round 20mm² of die area. These buying a slot on the manufacturing run even have the choice to choose up an undiced 200mm wafer that includes their design — realistically talking an ornamental merchandise as soon as it is left the clean-room setting of GlobalFoundries fabrication facility, even for individuals who fancy making an attempt to cube it up themselves, although Ansell and Moser level out it may be used to experiment with on-wafer probing of the elements.
Contributors also can order a 200mm wafer that includes their design, left totally intact. (📷: wafer.area)
Ansell and Moser are getting ready to launch a Crowd Provide marketing campaign to fill the primary manufacturing slot, with bookings to be made by 28 November forward of a design submission deadline of three December. Pricing can be set at $7,000 for 1,000 bare-die chips or $8,500 for wire-bonded chip-on-board packages, the pair has confirmed — with a commemorative undiced wafer priced at $2,000 on high.
Extra info is on the market on the wafer.area web site, whereas events can enroll on Crowd Provide to be notified when the marketing campaign opens.
