Hacker News: random__duck

New comment by random__duck in "RISC-V: They Should Have Known Better"

random__duck — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 22:05:26 +0000

> slighly crazy

What a lovely euphemism.

Signed: someone slightly crazy.

New comment by random__duck in "RISC-V: They Should Have Known Better"

random__duck — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 21:44:01 +0000

"This time its different".

New comment by random__duck in "RISC-V: They Should Have Known Better"

random__duck — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:09:19 +0000

I wonder if they will be inviting him to the next RISC-V design committee meeting.

New comment by random__duck in "Apple is getting this wrong"

random__duck — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 06:30:30 +0000

Spot on, while reading this post I couldn't help be wonder "but what about the prototypes"?

New comment by random__duck in "Designing an Ethernet Switch ASIC"

random__duck — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 13:04:26 +0000

No AI was used either for the project itself or for the post. I encourage you to look at the code and the git history.

New comment by random__duck in "Designing an Ethernet Switch ASIC"

random__duck — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:02:34 +0000

As the designer of "an ethernet connected beacon that counts and never overflows until the heat death of the universe" (https://talesonthewire.com/projects/until_heat_death_do_us_p...) I believe you have found the perfect audience for a memeish hardware project. So don't expect anything but my upmost support. :)

I detailed the roadmap for custom ASIC design a bit here: https://talesonthewire.com/projects/two_weeks_until_tapeout/... and joining the Tiny Tapeout discord community is a great place to reach out for help.

New comment by random__duck in "Designing an Ethernet Switch ASIC"

random__duck — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 23:27:33 +0000

No AI was used either for the project itself or for the post.

New comment by random__duck in "Designing an Ethernet Switch ASIC"

random__duck — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 22:27:16 +0000

Nice, thanks for posting the link. For the people unfamiliar with the Tiny Tapeout program: everyone that gets a copy of the Tiny Tapeout chip will be getting a copy of all the ASICs on the shuttle.

New comment by random__duck in "Designing an Ethernet Switch ASIC"

random__duck — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 22:24:23 +0000

True, I went over the EDA stack a bit in a previous article here: https://talesonthewire.com/projects/blake2s_hashing_accelera...

This used the librelane classic flow, so it's a lot of verilator, yosys, openroad, opensta, magic and klayout. :)

New comment by random__duck in "Designing an Ethernet Switch ASIC"

random__duck — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 21:53:31 +0000

You can join multiple Tiny Tapeout tiles (grid squares) together to form bigger projects, which is what I did here. It's actually one of the bigger 4 grid projects.

Also how much you can fit really depends on the node the shuttle is targeting. So I was in luck that this was on Global Foundries 180nm as you can cram in a lot for flip-flops onto a single tile compared with Skywater 130nm. On the other hand the gates are much slower than on Skywater 130nm.

Hopefully both programs will be around for a while, so if you are still interested when you have more time you can join the shuttle then.

New comment by random__duck in "Designing an Ethernet Switch ASIC"

random__duck — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 21:36:12 +0000

Sounds like they could have used you on that team. Bad luck, but it at least you can walk away proud knowing it was not an issue with your technical skills. :)

New comment by random__duck in "AI Overviews could push Reddit to end its $60M-a-year deal with Google"

random__duck — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:15:41 +0000

Well that isn't good new for google's advertising review if this is a trend.

New comment by random__duck in "Frontpages of the EU"

random__duck — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:12:11 +0000

This is great!

The Cult of the Ultra-Wealthy – Ed Elson and Ed Zitron [audio]

random__duck — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:10:45 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkDEUM8OeE8

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49032604

Points: 6

# Comments: 0

New comment by random__duck in "The Whispering Earring (2012)"

random__duck — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 22:09:06 +0000

I love this essay so much, it is such on point.

Designing an Ethernet Switch ASIC

random__duck — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 21:35:33 +0000

Article URL: https://essenceia.github.io/projects/ethernet_switch_asic/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48985182

Points: 252

# Comments: 61

The Whispering Earring (2012)

random__duck — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 18:50:44 +0000

Article URL: https://gwern.net/doc/fiction/science-fiction/2012-10-03-yvain-thewhisperingearring.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48835850

Points: 3

# Comments: 2

New comment by random__duck in "GAO: DOE Is Prematurely Excluding Less Expensive Options for Nuclear Cleanup"

random__duck — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 01:44:05 +0000

Now this is a future 100 billion dollar industry!

New comment by random__duck in "OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router"

random__duck — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 17:22:09 +0000

Can I do a "hold my beer" moment ? https://github.com/Essenceia/ethernet_switch_asic

New comment by random__duck in "OpenWrt One – Open Hardware Router"

random__duck — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 16:51:23 +0000

Thanks :) Yeah, the router is defiantly further in the future to, as it additionally requires CPU integration for run the software stack, switches are the first order of business.