TAPEOUT

Place the cells. Route the metal. Ship the chip. TAPEOUT is a Zachtronics-style puzzle game about building real chips. Real chips are made of millions of tiny standard cells, wired together by layers of metal thinner than a hair, and the game hands you the job.

play it full screen or get it on itch.io

• Place standard cells from the open-source SkyWater 130 nm library (flip-flops, NANDs, XORs, muxes) with their real pin shapes and keep-outs.
• Route every net across two metal layers, horizontal on one and vertical on the other, with vias to hop between. Touch the wrong wire and it's a short.
• Ship it. Seal the chip in a package, drop it on a test board and watch it run. It's a logic simulation of the metal you actually drew; get it wrong and the LEDs flicker, undecided.
• Optimise. Every chip has targets for wire length, vias and speed. Beat them for three stars, then beat yourself.

It's a callback to my VLSI routing research days at the ECL. Early build with 9 chips so far.