Matt Venn's Tiny Tapeout Gets a Shiny New Interactive Chip Viewer for Easy Project Browsing
Interactive die shot turns into a GDS map and more, with links to the project page and source code for every tile submitted.
Matt Venn has announced a new feature for the Tiny Tapeout website that makes it easier than ever to explore the projects people have submitted for each open source multi-project chip — by letting you dive down into a die shot.
"Our chip viewer just got an upgrade," Venn says of the new Tiny Tapeout website upgrade. "Now you can see microscope images, GDS [Graphic Design System layout], [and] local interconnect and jump straight to project files. Spot something cool? Dive right into the design."
Tiny Tapeout, an extension of Venn's Zero to ASIC Course, allows chip designers new and old to create compact layouts for inclusion in a multi-project chip — produced in-silicon for a fraction of the cost of a dedicated chip by sharing the fees between participants. All designs submitted for a Tiny Tapeout run, which must be made available under an open source license, are part of the chip — and individual submission can be selected using the development board on which it's fitted.
As each design is open source, they've always been browsable via the website. The new visualizer, though, offers a much more streamlined experience: a multi-layer map, which starts off with a high-resolution photograph of a de-encapsulated chip's silicon die. The next layer shows the GDSII data, a visual representation of layout of each design; the next the local interconnect layer. Multiple layers can be overlaid — placing the GDSII layer over the die shot, to make it easier to see what is going on — while a "shuttle map" shows the project number for each "tile" on the die.
If an interesting project catches your eye, turning on the "project links" mode makes each tile clickable — taking you straight to the Tiny Tapeout page with full details for that project, plus a link to the source files as-submitted in a GitHub repository.
The new visualizer is live on the Tiny Tapeout website now; at the time of writing, it had only been enabled for Tiny Tapeout 6 and Tiny Tapeout 7. The project is currently soliciting contributions for Tiny Tapeout IHP25b, a shift from the usual numbering scheme to represent a move to a new semiconductor fabrication facility, which closes in around two months' time.