Thanks. Those are great pointers!

And yes, many kudos for teaching yourself how to make an ASIC, that is very cool :-)

I have a long way to go to get there.

I've been out of the open source silicon field for a while but want to get back in. My side project is building a small-scale factory for custom ASICs, rather than getting them made in another factory. It's a very interesting problem, and quite different from ASIC design issues since a lot of it is physics, and obviously there are many factors that are different on a small scale.

The goal is an open source silicon service to the extent of making it relatively affordable for others to iterate and reuse designs, in the hope of developing a thriving scene much like happened with open source software, GNU/Linux etc. But it is proving hard to find the time these days. And as you say, it's expensive, no matter how you go about it, even though affordability is a goal of the final service.

Thanks again, and good luck.