> The fact that you can iterate on this in simulation, then deploy to actual silicon via Tiny Tapeout for $150 is honestly mind-blowing. We're living in the future.

It's really cool but it doesn't seem practical at all. They aren't setting up print runs, just one-offs (https://tinytapeout.com/faq/#how-many-chips-will-i-receive-c...) and $150 could get you... many orders of magnitude more power than that.

... For that matter, apparently the microcontroller in the dev kit is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP2040 , which seems like a beast in comparison. And it's still available for less than $1 USD on PiShop.