Wafer.space - new silicon fabrication partner
Tim Ansell launches wafer.space and fills critical gap after Efabless shutdown.
Tiny Tapeout Team
•26 September 2025
Tiny Tapeout - wafer.space
Tim Ansell, the former Googler who kicked off the free open source lottery shuttles in 2021 has just started wafer.space. It’s a Singapore-based wafer sharing service that’s stepping in to fill a critical gap in the open source silicon ecosystem.
After Efabless’s shutdown in early 2025, the community lost its primary manufacturing pathway for low-volume chip production. Wafer.space restores that access, at a different price point and with different tradeoffs.
What Does It Cost?
Here’s what makes wafer.space different: for $7,000, you receive 1,000 finished chips, about 10x what we receive from Skywater and IHP.
To save cost, chips are shipped as bare dies, with some mounted as Chip on Board (CoB) on a small PCB.
Adapting Tiny Tapeout to GF180
Tiny Tapeout is currently working on porting support for GF180MCU, thanks to Tillitis and Wit. Expect to be able to order chips manufactured on GF180 by mid 2026.
We expect about half the density on GF180 compared to SKY130, so each Tiny Tapeout tile will be larger - aiming for ~1000 standard cells per tile.
Learn more
- Chris Gammel interviewed Tim Ansell about it on The Amp Hour.
- Join the Wafer.space discord.
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Last modified by Matt Venn on 24 July 2026. Commit 69cd11e. Suggestions?