A puzzle game by bitheap
Build a CPU.
One gate at a time.
Chip Builder is a story-driven puzzle game about digital logic. Wire transistors into gates, gates into adders and memory, and memory into a working CPU you program yourself. Then take your design to the fab and make a real chip.
Developed and published by bitheap GmbH, Zürich, Switzerland. For Windows. Rated PEGI 3 and ESRB Everyone.
- Chapters
- 10
- Levels
- 43
- Working CPU
- 1
The trailer
See Chip Builder in action
From a single switch to a working CPU, in under a minute and a half.
The story
Day one at ChipCorp
You have just badged into the Logic Design Lab as a junior engineer at ChipCorp. Your mentor, Dr. Ada Chen, has one goal for you: build a working CPU with your own hands, starting from a single switch.
Over the following months you move through ChipCorp's labs, from arithmetic and sequential logic to memory engineering and the ALU testing chamber. Each lab adds a new layer to the machine you are building, until the diagrams on Dr. Chen's whiteboard become a working CPU, and then a real chip.
The journey
10 chapters, from transistor to chip
Each chapter is a lab at ChipCorp. Each level teaches exactly one new idea, and it stays with you because you built it yourself.
CHAPTER 0
Silicon & Switches
Build logic out of the only thing a chip really has: transistors.
CHAPTER 1
The Spark of Logic
The gates that process 0s and 1s.
CHAPTER 2
The Art of Combination
Adders, multiplexers and decoders.
CHAPTER 3
Memory Takes Hold
Latches, flip-flops and registers.
CHAPTER 4
The Storage Vault
RAM, ROM and address decoding.
CHAPTER 5
The Brain's Calculator
The ALU, the arithmetic and logic powerhouse of the CPU.
CHAPTER 6
Building the Brain
Program counter, control unit and datapath.
CHAPTER 7
The Language of Machines
Machine code, assembly and algorithms.
CHAPTER 8
The Chip Architect
Pipelining, caching and ISA design.
CHAPTER 9
From Sand to Silicon
Manufacture the chip you designed.
Screenshots
On the bench
How you learn
Learn by wiring it yourself
Interactive circuit board
Pick parts from the palette, drag wires from pin to pin, and watch signals propagate live as you build.
Real truth-table verification
Every circuit is graded against the exact behaviour it has to produce. No shortcuts, no guessing.
Lessons that tell a story
Each chapter opens with a briefing from the ChipCorp lab, with hints and a step-by-step mode whenever you get stuck.
From sand to silicon
In the final chapter you take your design to the fab: grow the crystal, lay out the transistors and package a modern 3D chip.
Play your way
Choose Guided, Normal or Hard, earn XP, and climb the ranks from Intern to Chip Architect.
Achievements
Ten achievements, one for your first circuit and one for each chapter you complete.
Get Chip Builder
All 10 chapters and 43 levels, for Windows. Wire your first gate today.