SiliconLab Design Build Chips

Silicon Lab turns your iPhone or iPad into a guided digital chip design studio. Write Verilog, simulate your logic, and watch an automated flow carry your design through synthesis, floorplanning, placement, clock-tree synthesis, routing, timing analysis, and physical verification — the same stages a real ASIC goes through on its way to tape-out.

WHY SILICON LAB

Most people never see how a chip actually gets built. Silicon Lab makes every stage visible and touchable: pinch-zoom into thousands of placed standard cells, trace a single net through five metal layers, or open the worst timing path and see exactly which gate is costing you nanoseconds. It's the chip design flow, made interactive.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Design
• Start from 11 templates — LED blinker, binary counter, PWM controller, UART, ALU, FSM, and more
• Edit real, synthesizable Verilog in a dedicated code editor with line numbers and file management
• Configure clock frequency, reset style, and top-level ports

Simulate
• Compile and run your design against an automatic testbench
• Explore an interactive waveform viewer — binary, hex, or decimal, with pinch-zoom and tap-to-inspect
• See pass/fail results for every test case

Synthesize
• Convert your RTL into standard cells from an SKY130-compatible cell library
• View cell counts, flip-flop counts, estimated area, and logic depth

Build the physical chip
• Floorplan: die and core boundaries, utilization targets
• Placement: every standard cell, positioned and zoomable — tap any cell for its instance name, type, and connected nets
• Clock Tree: see how the clock signal reaches every flip-flop through buffers, with latency and skew
• Routing: toggle individual metal layers, inspect any net's driver, loads, and routed length
• Timing: target frequency, setup/hold slack, and a full breakdown of the critical path
• Physical Checks: automated design-rule, connectivity, and routing verification

Explore the final layout
• Zoom continuously from the whole chip down to a single routed via
• Toggle cell and routing layers independently
• Tap any layer to learn what it does and why it exists

Learn as you go
• 20 short lessons covering ICs, RTL, standard cells, floorplanning, routing, timing, DRC, GDSII, tape-out, and more
• A guided "Build Your First Chip" walkthrough using an 8-bit counter, from idea to finished layout
• Every technical screen has an optional plain-language explanation

Track your work
• Version checkpoints and full build history for every project
• A persistent pipeline status — Design, Verify, Synthesize, Floorplan, Place, CTS, Route, Analyze, GDSII — so you always know what's current and what's outdated
• Export a complete project package (RTL, testbench, constraints, reports) via the share sheet

BUILT FOR IPAD AND IPHONE

Silicon Lab uses a persistent sidebar and multi-column layout on iPad, and a full, focused experience on iPhone — the same projects, same pipeline, same depth on either device.

IMPORTANT

Silicon Lab is an educational and prototyping tool. It is designed to teach digital ASIC design concepts and help you prototype small designs — it does not replace professional EDA software or a real fabrication flow. Results are for education, experimentation, and tape-out preparation, and require independent engineering verification before any real fabrication. "Ready for Export" means Silicon Lab's own automated workflow completed successfully; it is not foundry acceptance or production signoff.

Whether you're a student learning how chips are made, an engineer prototyping an idea, or just curious what's actually inside the silicon around you — Silicon Lab shows you, stage by stage.