Ask HN: NYC Community Chip Fabs?

[caaaadr]

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 :)

[al2o3cr]

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.

[caaaadr → al2o3cr]

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