TLDR; the Google Hardware Toolchains team is launching a new developer portal, developers.google.com/silicon, to help the developer community get started with its Open MPW shuttle program. This will allow anyone to submit open source integrated circuit designs to get manufactured at no-cost.
Since November 2020, when Skywater Technologies announced their partnership with Google to open source their Process Design Kit for the SKY130 process node, the Hardware Toolchains team here at Google has been on a journey to make building open silicon accessible to all developers. Having access to an open source and manufacturable PDK changes the status-quo in the custom silicon design industry and academia:
- Designers are now free to start their projects liberated from NDAs and usage restrictions
- Researchers are able to make their research reproducible by their fellow peers
- Open source EDA tools can integrate deeply with the manufacturing process
Together we’ve built a community of more than 3,000 members, where hardware designers and software developers alike, can all contribute in their own way to advance the state of the art of open silicon design.