Rickroll Meme Immortalized In Custom ASIC That Includes 164 Hardcoded Programs (theregister.com) 9
Matthew Connatser reports via The Register: An ASIC designed to display the infamous Rickroll meme is here, alongside 164 other assorted functions. The project is a product of Matthew Venn's Zero to ASIC Course, which offers prospective chip engineers the chance to "learn to design your own ASIC and get it fabricated." Since 2020, Zero to ASIC has accepted several designs that are incorporated into a single chip called a multi-project wafer (MPW), a cost-saving measure as making one chip for one design would be prohibitively expensive. Zero to ASIC has two series of chips: MPW and Tiny Tapeout. The MPW series usually includes just a handful of designs, such as the four on MPW8 submitted in January 2023. By contrast, the original Tiny Tapeout chip included 152 designs, and Tiny Tapeout 2 (which arrived last October) had 165, though could bumped up to 250. Of the 165 designs, one in particular may strike a chord: Design 145, or the Secret File, made by engineer and YouTuber Bitluni. His Secret File design for the Tiny Tapeout ASIC is designed to play a small part of Rick Astley's music video for Never Gonna Give You Up, also known as the Rickroll meme.
Bitluni was a late inclusion on the Tiny Tapeout 2 project, having been invited just three days before the submission deadline. He initially just made a persistence-of-vision controller, which was revised twice for a total of three designs. "At the end, I still had a few hours left, and I thought maybe I should also upload a meme project," Bitluni says in his video documenting his ASIC journey. His meme of choice was of course the Rickroll. One might even call it an Easter egg. However, given that there were 250 total plots for each design, there wasn't a ton of room for both the graphics processor and the file it was supposed to render, a short GIF of the music video. Ultimately, this had to be shrunk from 217 kilobytes to less than half a kilobyte, making its output look similar to games on the Atari 2600 from 1977. Accessing the Rickroll rendering processor and other designs isn't simple. Bitluni created a custom circuit board to mount the Tiny Tapeout 2 chip, creating a device that could then be plugged into a motherboard capable of selecting specific designs on the ASIC. Unfortunately for Bitluni, his first PCB had a design error on it that he had to correct, but the revised version worked and was able to display the Rickroll GIF in hardware via a VGA port.
Bitluni was a late inclusion on the Tiny Tapeout 2 project, having been invited just three days before the submission deadline. He initially just made a persistence-of-vision controller, which was revised twice for a total of three designs. "At the end, I still had a few hours left, and I thought maybe I should also upload a meme project," Bitluni says in his video documenting his ASIC journey. His meme of choice was of course the Rickroll. One might even call it an Easter egg. However, given that there were 250 total plots for each design, there wasn't a ton of room for both the graphics processor and the file it was supposed to render, a short GIF of the music video. Ultimately, this had to be shrunk from 217 kilobytes to less than half a kilobyte, making its output look similar to games on the Atari 2600 from 1977. Accessing the Rickroll rendering processor and other designs isn't simple. Bitluni created a custom circuit board to mount the Tiny Tapeout 2 chip, creating a device that could then be plugged into a motherboard capable of selecting specific designs on the ASIC. Unfortunately for Bitluni, his first PCB had a design error on it that he had to correct, but the revised version worked and was able to display the Rickroll GIF in hardware via a VGA port.
Ok (Score:5, Funny)
"Immportalized"? (Score:2)
You mean future astro-archaeologists from the Pleiades will find it in a garbage dump?
holes in this theory (Score:5, Funny)
Never gonna dope you up
Never gonna etch you down
Or deplete you
Open source (Score:4, Informative)
The really interesting thing here is that we finally have an open source toolchain to develop custom silicon.
It would be nice if we could get some really good open toolchains for FPGAs though. I'm aware that you can develop for some Lattice parts with open source tools, but last time I looked there were some big limitations.
The reason FPGA development is important is that you can quickly test and iterate designs, before committing to silicon. ASICs require you to get parts fabricated, as well as a suitable evaluation board. Much more cost and much longer timeframes.
Excellent proof (Score:2)
Memes rot your brain, and this is excellent proof thereof.
Smart Move (Score:3)
I would not have heard of this project if they hadn't figured out a way to get midwits to relay the information.
Scared to click links (Score:2)
I'm scared to click any of the links on this one. Won't get Rick Rolled again!
I am a TT02 contributor (Score:4, Informative)
Two of my designs are part of the same TT02 chip that houses the 'secret file'. These are not 'programs' but rather hardware logic designs that were etched into silicon using a 130nm manufacturing process (this is what Intel and AMD were using in the early 2000's to make CPUs). Each project contributor was able to build their silicon projects using free open source tools. For less than USD$200 each contributor received a design slot on the chip, and a demo board with the custom chip. The design submission window closed in Nov 2022, and the board with the custom chip was delivered in Feb 2024.
(When I saw the 'secret file' submission in Nov 2022, I decoded it from the source code to make sure the file wasn't anything nefarious. When I saw it was a rick-roll I died laughing. Well played.).