
The OpenROAD project on lowering ASIC costs and design times - xvilka
https://theopenroadproject.org/
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0815test
This seems to be mostly an umbrella effort, focusing (according to their home
page) on the "RTL to GDSII" part of EDA. To the extent that they're
successful, it would be quite complementary with other efforts in open
hardware design, focusing on generating RTL from very-high-level,
parameterized, quasi-functional hardware descriptions. But I'm a bit skeptical
about their overall goals, particularly since one key issue with modern ASIC
design is the unwillingness on the part of fabs to openly share critically
needed info about their design rules or other proprietary details of their
design-related workflow - and there's no way that open-source software alone
can resolve this. Of course I do think we can expect a few useful tools to
come out of this effort, and maybe that's compelling enough.

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someguydave
Indeed, a fully-open fab is needed. It seems crazy that access to silicon
fabrication is limited to a very small number of wealthy businesses.

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londons_explore
>. silicon fabrication is limited to a very small number of wealthy
businesses.

Doesn't seem so crazy when you realise a fab can cost upwards of $1B

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mud_dauber
I came here for exactly this question. An analog-centric fab with 8” wafer
technology, perhaps $1B for a greenfield setup. A state of the art 12” wafer
logic factory? Think $5B. Not sure about DRAM fabs but probably comparable.

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madengr
This software is what Cadence will gladly charge you $1M/seat. Seems pretty
ambitious to pull this off for free.

~~~
bb88
Or you can see it as an opportunity. That just shows how ripe the electronics
industry is ripe for disruption.

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xvilka
See their GitHub repositories: [https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-
Project](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project)

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runroader
At first I was very confused what this had to do with the 4GL RAD language
that been around since the early 90's. Seems like a poor choice of name for
your project.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenROAD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenROAD)

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londons_explore
I see no code repo, no IRC/discord channel, etc.

Either this project is just a pipe dream of it isn't as open as its name
implies.

~~~
xvilka
See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19733665](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19733665)

