Democratizing IC Design: The SSCS PICO Program

Over the past several decades, society has strongly benefited from free and open-source software. More recently, the open-source spirit has expanded to hardware and has energized a new maker community that collaboratively tinkers with embedded systems at the printed circuit board level. Recent developments have now also opened the door toward democratizing integrated circuit (IC) design and enabling open and global collaboration. With the recent launch of its Platform for IC Design Outreach (PICO) program, the IEEE Solid-State Circuit Society is working with the open-source community to help accelerate the construction of the required ecosystem. The program will provide education, mentoring and collaboration opportunities as well as design contests and sponsored fabrication runs. This talk will provide an overview of this program and its goals.