How to Design a New Chip on a Budget

Re:How to Design a New Chip on a Budget by pjc50 on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @06:53PM (#16321111)

Having spent about a decade in a chip design software startup that was eventually bought by Cadence, I'll say:

- you're absolutely right that the tools are horrible to use, and Verilog's time is up

- existing chip design companies are extremely conservative and hate adopting anything new even from their own preferred vendor, because risk

- a lot of the key knowledge is spread by apprenticeship and oral culture; analog IC engineers are another culture altogether

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Re:How to Design a New Chip on a Budget by phlipski on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @11:07PM (#16322184)

I spent over a decade doing circuit design and I can corroborate your points. Chip design is maddening! One of the most interesting differences between software and hardware engineering is how many blogs and writing on the web you can find about software. You can almost self teach a masters in CS through online blogs and various postings! The only writing you find online about hardware is either patent's or IEEE white-papers.

There is still something magical when a new chip design comes back from the fab and boots up!

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