Skip to main content

Build-your-own-chip startup wants everyone to design and fab their own processor via a simple UI – but Nvidia, Intel et al needn’t worry for now

Chip design, particularly building Custom Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), normally costs more than $100 million and takes roughly three years to move from concept to production. But Zero ASIC is automating chip design using a no-code approach.  

The company has revealed it will begin offering customers early access to its ChipMaker platform, which it claims can quickly assemble customized multi-chiplet system-in-package (SiP) units without the manufacturing burdens traditionally incurred.

Zero ASIC wants to democratize access chip production and make it more viable so companies by offering them a simplified chiplet-based design process. This means customers can build, test, and tweak their designs before ordering devices, with cloud-based Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) letting them implement RTL source code. 

Building a chip, one eBrick at a time

"To build the next wave of world changing silicon devices, we need to reduce the barrier to ASICs by orders of magnitude,” said CEO and founder of Zero ASIC, Andreas Ologsson. “Our mission at Zero ASIC is to make ordering an ASIC as easy as ordering catalog parts from an electronics distributor."

The process will rely on a grid-like 3D interposer called eFabric that improves the efficiency of die-to-die communication, as well as composability. It also supports the integration of processing blocks using 3D attached eBrick chiplets. 

The eBricks include a quad-core RISC-V Linux-capable dual-issue processor, 5 K LUT embedded FPGA, and 3MB SRAM -3 TOPS machine learning accelerator.

These are pre-made designs that are open to all that can be assembled using the service into a finished SiP. Companies who design their own chips will then submit these to be physically manufactured. 

The firm says using its service will lead to savings in cost and energy of between ten and 100 times, especially when you compare it to the process needed to make the best processors out there today. 

The firm says the chips designed using this process would be suited for a variety of industries and use cases including those facing supply chain and sustainability challenges. The firm cites robotics, automotive safety, aeropsace, and defense as well as 5G and 6G communications among the appropriate uses for these chips.

Because, however, they won’t sampled until at least the third quarter of 2024, the likes of Nvidia and Intel needn’t yet worry about Zero ASIC’s produce eating into their market share.

More from TechRadar Pro



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The latest Apple TV 4K test lets you watch four sports streams at once

Apple is trying something new with the latest beta version of tvOS 16.5: the option to watch up to four simultaneous streams at once. Right now it's limited to live sports streamed through the Apple TV app on the Apple TV 4K , specifically MLB Friday Night Baseball and the MLS Season Pass. A multi-view option was spotted in the tvOS software last month, but the code was hidden and not enabled. MacRumors reported that the feature would be enabled this weekend, and beta testers have since been able to use it. As yet multi-view hasn't been officially announced by Apple, but it's expected that tvOS 16.5 is going to be pushed out in its final form within the next month or so. WWDC 2023 is around the corner as well, when we should be hearing about the next major updates for Apple's various operating systems – including tvOS 17. How it works Over at 9to5Mac there's a hands-on demonstrating how the multi-view feature works, and it's pretty much as you would expe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Quantum computers are fast becoming cheaper and smaller — and they could be coming to a data center near you very soon

IonQ claims we’re closer to widespread enterprise quantum computing deployment as it lifted the lid on two rack-mounted models that can be deployed on-premises.   The startup has built the fourth-generation #AQ35 IonQ Forte Enterprise and fifth-generation #AQ64 IonQ Tempo, both of which are designed to be deployed in enterprise and government data centers. It’s also said it is deploying two quantum computers to the US Air Force.  While revealing these two models, IonQ co-founder and CTO Jungsang Kim said quantum computers are already in use by enterprises to churn through machine learning workloads. This, he added, suggests we’re much closer to readily available and affordable machines. Priming enterprises for a quantum future “We believe in the enterprise-grade quantum computing, which is where it can be something of value for enterprises, can happen in the next few years as we build powerful enough quantum computers that can actually do things that classical computers w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nvidia RTX 4080 GPU could get cheaper with a new version – but don’t get your hopes up

Nvidia’s RTX 4080 is purportedly getting a new spin on the GPU which could reduce the cost, but any price reduction will likely be very minor, sadly, if it happens at all. Tom’s Hardware flagged up this rumor – and treat it with caution, as with anything from the ever-spinning mill – that originated from HKEPC (a tech site in Hong Kong), claiming that while the current RTX 4080 graphics card is built on the AD103-300 chip, Nvidia is going to use a slightly different GPU in the future, namely AD103-301. There’s now more evidence this is actually happening, Tom’s points out, courtesy of a graphics card maker, Galax, which under its RTX 4080 product details lists the GPU as ‘AD103-300/301’. Furthermore, VideoCardz , which also picked up on this, informs us that Gainward, another card maker, has also listed the updated GPU variant AD103-301 in its product specs. With two separate third-party graphics card makers mentioning this new spin on the GPU in their specs, it seems pret...
Post a Comment
Read more