July 24, 2026
Switch, Please!
Designing an Ethernet Switch ASIC
A tiny homemade internet chip has commenters cheering, arguing, and pitching cursed gadgets
TLDR: A developer says they’ve created an open-source chip for a basic internet switch and sent it off for manufacturing, a big deal because this kind of hardware is usually closed and secretive. Commenters were split between amazement, nerdy arguing over how switches work, and the now-obligatory AI suspicion.
A solo hardware hacker says they’ve built what may be the first open-source chip for an Ethernet switch — basically a tiny traffic cop for wired internet — and sent it off to be manufactured. That alone had the crowd doing a double take. The biggest reaction wasn’t just “wow,” but “wait, you fit that in something this small?” One commenter sounded genuinely stunned that such a project could squeeze into the ultra-tiny Tiny Tapeout program at all, which became a running theme: equal parts admiration, disbelief, and “I need to learn how this black magic works.”
But the comment section didn’t stay wholesome for long. The spiciest mini-drama came from a reader who used the post to relive a Google interview meltdown, claiming an interviewer flat-out refused to believe a network switch could send data onward before checking the whole message. Translation for normal humans: the thread instantly turned into a “who was wrong, who was stubborn, and who fumbled the bag” storytime. That’s the kind of nerd drama commenters live for.
Elsewhere, the vibes were delightfully chaotic: one person bluntly asked “Was Claude used?”, because apparently no ambitious project can now exist without an AI paternity test. Another arrived with a gloriously cursed dream of an “Internet of Soldering” gadget built around a dead soldering iron. So yes: the article is about a breakthrough chip, but the comments made it a full-on spectacle of awe, debate, and meme-energy curiosity.
Key Points
- •The article presents an open-source 100 Mbps unmanaged cut-through Ethernet switch ASIC designed by Julia Desmazes.
- •The first version of the chip has been taped out on the Tiny Tapeout gf26b shuttle as part of wafer.space’s second run.
- •The switch floorplan shown in the article occupies 711.2 x 325 um of area.
- •The article argues that open-source silicon has focused mostly on RISC-V SoCs, while networking ASICs remain largely absent.
- •The author frames a switch ASIC as a practical first step toward more ambitious open networking chips such as router SoCs.