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I agree the submission process has been somewhat chaotic, but I don't think it has been exceedingly so. The fact that this was gonna be an alpha test of new tec

I agree the submission process has been somewhat chaotic, but I don't think it has been exceedingly so. The fact that this was gonna be an alpha test of new technology was clear from the start. Taping out with a modern PDK and open source tools just hasn't been done before. Also, the caravel requirement has been known for at least three months. True the design wasn't done yet and the details were sparse, but saying it was added two weeks before the tapeout deadline is disingenuous when it was announced at the start of the program. As for not taking your money to get your own tapeout, I'm sure they'll be most happy to do so once they've worked out the kinks, which is exactly what they're using the shuttle runs for. (Not affiliated with the project in any way, just watching closely out of professional interest).

octoberfranklin 6y ago
> Also, the caravel requirement has been known for at least three months. That is simply false. Maybe known to insiders at eFabless. Seriously where do you see any public mention of "caravel" three months ago? There's absolutely nothing about it on the mailing lists [1] [2]. > it was announced at the start of the program Where? I heard about this in late July and have been following this very closely since they posted the design rules in early September. I've probably read through the DRC rule document more closely than anybody outside of Google/Skywater/eFabless. Two weeks ago there was nothing anywhere in any of that about having to use their "Caravel" management padframe. As of 15-Sep (git commit 107103f922db43408f59a1540cd4bd3737b30172) the text "caravel" does not appear anywhere in the PDK [3]. I checked with: $ find . -not -type d -exec grep -Hi caravel {} \; This was sprung on us two weeks before the deadline. Not cool. A lot of karma and goodwill burned. [1] https://groups.google.com/d/forum/skywater-pdk-announce https://groups.google.com/d/forum/skywater-pdk-announce [2] https://groups.google.com/g/skywater-pdk-users https://groups.google.com/g/skywater-pdk-users [3] https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk
- KenoFischer 6y ago
  It was talked about all over the place. E.g. see https://youtu.be/EczW2IWdnOM https://youtu.be/EczW2IWdnOM from June around the one hour mark. As I said, I'm very far from an insider.
  - octoberfranklin 6y ago
    > It was talked about all over the place. Really? Where can we read about it? > E.g. see https://youtu.be/EczW2IWdnOM https://youtu.be/EczW2IWdnOM from June around the one hour mark. What are you referring to, where exactly in there? I poked "around the one hour mark" and didn't stumble across it, but am not gonna watch the whole thing. It's over an hour of somebody talking at a camera. Does an offhand comment buried in the middle of a 90-minute youtube ramble really strike you as appropriate notification of such an important requirement? Especially when this requirement doesn't appear anyplace where it can be read?
    - KenoFischer 6y ago
      I just gave an example, I didn't mean to say it was the exclusive source of info. Every discussion I've seen of what the layout would actually be was always "roughly 10mm^2, pending finalization of the harness". Also, it was talked about many times on the slack. Look, I have no dog in this fight. All I meant to say was that this was not some sudden last minute change of plans. Could things have been communicated more clearly? Sure. But that's par for the course for an alpha program like this.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      The slide at 1:02:49 has "standardized harness" in bold red. It's up for a few minutes and the presenter discussed the harness and reasoning for a good minute or so.
      - octoberfranklin 6y ago
        He says (1:03:00) that the harness "will be isolated from the area that your design goes into" and (1:03:21) that it will "enable probing and controlling your region if you want". In other words, the video says you can simply not connect to it and not use it if you don't want it. He never says anything about it being hardwired to the padframe. Then, two weeks before tapeout, they changed the rules and made this thing not only mandatory, but made it the only way your design can boot up or communicate with the outside world. This was a bait and switch.
- rrss 6y ago
  Maybe the name "caravel" is new, but the presence of a standardized harness was announced at the same time as the whole initiative. There's some discussion of the harness on skywater-pdk-users, and it was mentioned in various comments in the previous discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23755693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23755693
lawrenceyan 6y ago
I know this is somewhat out of context, but just wanted to say thanks for helping create Julia! I remain ever grateful that I was able to take my undergraduate math courses coding in Julia instead of being forced to use Matlab or R.
- KenoFischer 6y ago
  Glad it was useful to you!

octoberfranklin 6y ago

> Also, the caravel requirement has been known for at least three months. That is simply false. Maybe known to insiders at eFabless. Seriously where do you see any public mention of "caravel" three months ago? There's absolutely nothing about it on the mailing lists [1] [2]. > it was announced at the start of the program Where? I heard about this in late July and have been following this very closely since they posted the design rules in early September. I've probably read through the DRC rule document more closely than anybody outside of Google/Skywater/eFabless. Two weeks ago there was nothing anywhere in any of that about having to use their "Caravel" management padframe. As of 15-Sep (git commit 107103f922db43408f59a1540cd4bd3737b30172) the text "caravel" does not appear anywhere in the PDK [3]. I checked with: $ find . -not -type d -exec grep -Hi caravel {} \; This was sprung on us two weeks before the deadline. Not cool. A lot of karma and goodwill burned. [1] https://groups.google.com/d/forum/skywater-pdk-announce https://groups.google.com/d/forum/skywater-pdk-announce [2] https://groups.google.com/g/skywater-pdk-users https://groups.google.com/g/skywater-pdk-users [3] https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk

KenoFischer 6y ago
It was talked about all over the place. E.g. see https://youtu.be/EczW2IWdnOM https://youtu.be/EczW2IWdnOM from June around the one hour mark. As I said, I'm very far from an insider.
- octoberfranklin 6y ago
  > It was talked about all over the place. Really? Where can we read about it? > E.g. see https://youtu.be/EczW2IWdnOM https://youtu.be/EczW2IWdnOM from June around the one hour mark. What are you referring to, where exactly in there? I poked "around the one hour mark" and didn't stumble across it, but am not gonna watch the whole thing. It's over an hour of somebody talking at a camera. Does an offhand comment buried in the middle of a 90-minute youtube ramble really strike you as appropriate notification of such an important requirement? Especially when this requirement doesn't appear anyplace where it can be read?
  - KenoFischer 6y ago
    I just gave an example, I didn't mean to say it was the exclusive source of info. Every discussion I've seen of what the layout would actually be was always "roughly 10mm^2, pending finalization of the harness". Also, it was talked about many times on the slack. Look, I have no dog in this fight. All I meant to say was that this was not some sudden last minute change of plans. Could things have been communicated more clearly? Sure. But that's par for the course for an alpha program like this.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    The slide at 1:02:49 has "standardized harness" in bold red. It's up for a few minutes and the presenter discussed the harness and reasoning for a good minute or so.
    - octoberfranklin 6y ago
      He says (1:03:00) that the harness "will be isolated from the area that your design goes into" and (1:03:21) that it will "enable probing and controlling your region if you want". In other words, the video says you can simply not connect to it and not use it if you don't want it. He never says anything about it being hardwired to the padframe. Then, two weeks before tapeout, they changed the rules and made this thing not only mandatory, but made it the only way your design can boot up or communicate with the outside world. This was a bait and switch.
rrss 6y ago
Maybe the name "caravel" is new, but the presence of a standardized harness was announced at the same time as the whole initiative. There's some discussion of the harness on skywater-pdk-users, and it was mentioned in various comments in the previous discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23755693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23755693

lawrenceyan 6y ago

I know this is somewhat out of context, but just wanted to say thanks for helping create Julia! I remain ever grateful that I was able to take my undergraduate math courses coding in Julia instead of being forced to use Matlab or R.

KenoFischer 6y ago
Glad it was useful to you!