[throwaway31131]

For some definitions of serious, sure. The main critical piece that’s missing is all the testing infrastructure. Buying 100 or so ASICs for university use is one thing. Buying 100K, or more, is another.

Not the gdb support via jtag that software engineers need, they have that. But the various manufacturing test suites, which do modify gate netlists, and automated circuit characterization techniques that electrical engineers and the manufacturing engineers use.