ken@golgi.harvard.edu (Ken Cleary) (05/30/91)
(was Subject: Cheap Silicon...) Well, my eyes are starting to be opened at just how many places there are for getting a VLSI project implemented. My thanks to the folks who replied or followed-up. It looks like between MOSIS and Orbit, and Massachusetts Microelectronics Center, I've got quite a range of choices. This has gotten me to thinking. (sniff, sniff... I smell sumthin' burnin' :-) How many facilities are available to people doing low-volume (or not-so-low volume) prototyping/research throughout the world? I've heard mention of a place in North Carolina. There must be others. How does the "proliferation" of VLSI prototyping services in the U.S. compare with those in other countries? The U.S. media seems to like whining about how other countries are ahead of us in commodity chips, like DRAM's. (I don't wish to start a debate about international competition, as I don't like to engage in nationalist demagoguery.) What is the situation like in various parts of the USA, or even in other countries? I am just curious about how easy it might be for persons who are not in the "VLSI community" (faculty, students, commercial VLSI designers) to still get silicon implemented, such as on a hobby/amateur basis. It seems that in the U.S., all you need to implement a handful of chips is around $500, an Internet connection, and access to an X-windows-based workstation (for running Magic). If this notion were popularized, would it increase demand sufficient to bring prices down even farther?