I got a tile on TinyTapeout9 (I think) and participated in a workshop for it at the Hackaday Supercon last November.
I had a lot of fun. I had a bit of knowledge from my university digital logic class, but really enjoyed learning how the layers are put down and how they make transistors. If you have an opportunity to do it, I strongly recommend it.
There are some very cool things you can do, but you’re limited by the tile size, the inputs provided and it’s worth noting that you get one chip on a module. It’s probably the 2nd step in getting started making a custom ASIC if you wanted to get into that. (The first being learning how to design with logic gates)
bitlui made a VGA Rickroll with it a while ago. [1]
My tile spells out “Aaron” (my first name) on the output to the seven segment display.
I think there is enough room to make a simple microprocessor. Fun if you’ve not ever done something like it.
So, to answer your question - yes it could be useful if you had a very specific thing you wanted to do that made sense in silicon. You could buy extra tiles and get space. That said, it’s mostly educational. But worth it if you have an interest.
Comments
I got a tile on TinyTapeout9 (I think) and participated in a workshop for it at the Hackaday Supercon last November.
I had a lot of fun. I had a bit of knowledge from my university digital logic class, but really enjoyed learning how the layers are put down and how they make transistors. If you have an opportunity to do it, I strongly recommend it.
There are some very cool things you can do, but you’re limited by the tile size, the inputs provided and it’s worth noting that you get one chip on a module. It’s probably the 2nd step in getting started making a custom ASIC if you wanted to get into that. (The first being learning how to design with logic gates)
bitlui made a VGA Rickroll with it a while ago. [1]
My tile spells out “Aaron” (my first name) on the output to the seven segment display.
I think there is enough room to make a simple microprocessor. Fun if you’ve not ever done something like it.
So, to answer your question - yes it could be useful if you had a very specific thing you wanted to do that made sense in silicon. You could buy extra tiles and get space. That said, it’s mostly educational. But worth it if you have an interest.
[1] https://youtu.be/DdF_nzMW_i8