Creating an ASIC chip in a lab

[dcharters]

I am working in a home lab and I want to design and build an ASIC chip. I just got a few books on VHDL, but a kit with wafers and such in a kit would be very useful. Can anyone point me to a sight where I might find a kit like this? I am a software engineer but this hardware stuff from scratch is very new to me. I also have schematic back grounds so I know circuit design on a PCB.

Regards,

David Charters

 

[OLIVE2222]

Hi dcharters, welcome to this forum.

ASIC are almost only intended for big companies having needs for large IC amounts and ready to pay high setup costs. Universities can however have sometimes access to semiconductors foundry facilities via research agreements. I guess you maybe just want to implement you VHDL code in an CPLD or a FPGA (not a wafer so). To do that you must chose a brand ( Altera, Xilinx, Actel ..) and go for a design kit with a blank IC you can program (many time).

Olivier

 

[dcharters]

I am not so interested in large amounts but more the small size of putting everything on one chip. The way I understand it FPGA won't give me that. So it sounds like there are no generic "kits" out there where a set of custom wafers can be built and put together. It seems pretty simple if you had the right equipment. The had part is getting the wafers since a 3000 degree furnace is not easy at hand

 

[BobK]

I am not so interested in large amounts but more the small size of putting everything on one chip. The way I understand it FPGA won't give me that. So it sounds like there are no generic "kits" out there where a set of custom wafers can be built and put together. It seems pretty simple if you had the right equipment. The had part is getting the wafers since a 3000 degree furnace is not easy at hand

To make a chip you need a clean room and equipment costing many millions of dollars. I don't think you want to try this at home

Bob

 

[BobK]

Oh, and you can put an entire high-end microprocessor on an FPGA these days. So unless you are talking about analog circuitry, and FPGA would do it for you.

Bob

 

[OLIVE2222]

For Actel even analog blocks are available:
http://www.actel.com/products/fusion/default.aspx

Olivier