Tiny Tapeout hit as eFabless closes

Over the weekend, eFabless, a pioneer in open source chip design, made the difficult decision to shut down its operations, impacting the latest shuttle runs for the Tiny Tapeout project. The company, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, had been facing challenges in raising funds in recent months. Mike Wishart, the CEO of eFabless, expressed disappointment, stating, “Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to complete our latest funding round, As a result, eFabless has shut down operations until further notice.” eFabless was known for providing an open source chip design flow and wafer shuttle services.

The Tiny Tapeout project, supported by eFabless, offered chip makers the opportunity to utilize a multi-project wafer service at an affordable cost. Currently, the call is out for designs for the TT10 run on the 130nm process at Skywater Technology. Matt Venn, involved in the project, shared concerns about the status of previous runs, stating, “Right now we have TT08 awaiting packaging and TT09 is still in the Skywater fab. These chips represent a huge investment of time and energy from hundreds of people and we currently don’t know if we’ll receive them.”

With uncertainty looming over the delivery of the chips from previous runs, Venn is considering offering refunds if the chips cannot be shipped. The backlog includes 369 designs on TT09 and 135 on TT08, with the fabrication and packaging process potentially taking up to a year to complete. Venn also mentioned that the current TT10 shuttle and future Sky130 shuttles are on hold as they explore alternative options for fabrication processes.

“The current TT10 shuttle and future Sky130 shuttles are paused while we explore options for Sky130 and other processes,” said Venn. “We already have an existing relationship with IHP, which offers a similar 130nm process, and our next public shuttle will likely be with them in June. We are also trying to find a route to manufacturing on GlobalFoundries GF180, an existing open source PDK.” The uncertainty surrounding project delivery timelines has left stakeholders in a state of limbo.

Despite the challenges faced by eFabless, the company has made significant contributions to the industry through its chipIgnite project. Collaborating with 50 academic institutions and facilitating the tape out of 80 commercial designs, eFabless has left a mark on the open source chip design landscape. However, with the current shutdown and lack of a definitive plan for project delivery, the future remains uncertain for both eFabless and the Tiny Tapeout project.