While the snow falls heavily outside the windows at DTU in Lyngby (Denmark) this Saturday afternoon in mid-February, over 80 people are engaged with open-source tools for chip design. Together with the Tiny Tapeout project, DTU Compute is hosting a four hours hands-on workshop for the first time, where participants learn to use free online tools that can work on all kinds of computers.
The organisers, Professor Martin Schoeberl and his colleague, Associate Professor Luca Pezzarossa at DTU Compute, are positively surprised by the great interest.
“We did not expect so many people to attend. It is a great success to have everyone from students to IT professionals and professors joining us today. The Tiny Tapeout project is a game changer in chip design education. Everyone can explore chip design and get their own chip produced by using open-source design tools and for a small amount. In that way, the Tiny Tapeout democratises chip design and production,” says Martin Schoeberl.
Amazing to hold a chip in my hand
Tiny Tapeout is an educational project that makes it easier and cheaper than ever to get your designs manufactured on a real chip. It allows chip designers to transform their designs into silicon chips quickly and affordably
The participants themselves pay DKK 450 for the workshop and extra if they want to get their own chip with all the designs from the workshop on it.
One of the participants is Thomas Flummer. He graduated from DTU Electro in 2005 and now runs his own software company.
"I work on various electronics projects mostly for fun, and this is just one of them. I have also met Matt Venn before. I think it will be amazing to hold a chip in my hand that I helped create - and incredible that it can be done for just 150 dollars," he says.
Among the attendees, there are also people from the Danish ‘Capture the Flag’ (a video game) community.
“This type of workshop is a very good way of providing science education. We need chip design in Europe, but we don’t have many places to study it in Denmark. Now we have got a good feeling of how to use open-source chip design tools, and I am looking forward to using it in our educations,” says Martin Schoeberl.
Indirectly, the EU Chip Act funds part of the workshop. The event is sponsored by the new Danish Chips Competence Centre (located at DTU), which administers the “Danish” EU chip act money, and the Edu4Chip project (read more in the fact box below) and the two companies Synopsys and Syosil.
Tiny Tapeout - skill sharing and science communication
Matt Venn, the creator of Tiny Tapeout and an expert in open-source silicon, is leading the four-hour Tiny Tapeout workshop.
“This is the 8th workshop in total. We don’t do Tiny Tapeout very often. Normally, it is workshops at conferences or universities. We held one at Stanford University, e.g. The US is very keen on doing these workshops.”
Matt Venn studied electronic engineering at Leeds University in England and now lives in Spain. He has always been interested in skill sharing and has done a lot of science communication with young people - around 15,000 people across 20 different workshops.
“I am interested in the training. Usually, I use my electronic engineering education and my science communication to make something other people can use. Most people have never touched a semiconductor at university. One of the things in the EU Chip Act is that there needs to be more people involved. That is why we are doing these workshops to involve younger people in chip design and show that you can do it in only one day, you can do it with any computer, and you don’t have to install tools. That is also a very important point, because normally, you can’t really install software on school computers,” Matt Venn says.
“It is also completely unique to do a ‘tapeout’ in four hours. Most people in the industry don’t even think it is true. They come with another mindset. They think we made it up, that is why it is important to document the workshop. So, in terms of learning and spreading capability, it is a kind of democratising. The open-source sites/tools feed into that. And that is another important part of my work.”
Sing out laud
Several times during the workshop, Matt Venn turns into a DJ and people have to stand up and sing together with him. The text is about open chip design and Matt Venn plays his keyboard and sings. It took a while for people to understand the concept, but in the end, it works – and people sing together with him, nod along to the rhythm, laugh and clap.
“If you run a four-hour computer workshop, it is very difficult to make it not boring and tiring. I think it is important to make people talk and stand up. I have a long history of doing music, so I decided to experiment with DJing. I try out many things, some work, some don’t. But the music definitely does.”
Almost half of the participants have submitted their tapeout (their own chip design). Up to 10 March, they can change their design, and then the design will be sent for manufacturing in the US. It will take around six months before the chip is produced, and then Martin and Luca will invite everyone to a bring-up party to celebrate the arrival of the Tiny Tapeout chip with all the designs on it.
