It's 1995. You have $5 million and a hunch that semiconductors might be a thing.

Silicon Empire is a chip tycoon simulation where you design real CPUs, build GPUs, run foundries, and try to outsmart 8 AI competitors across 30+ years of tech history. Think business strategy meets engineering sandbox.

Start however you want. Design CPUs from scratch. Build GPUs and chase the leader. Run a foundry and let others do the hard part. Or do all three and watch your accountant cry.

▸ WHAT'S IN

— 8 AI competitors with actual strategies, not target dummies. Each one has a personality and an architectural fingerprint.
— CPU design with 7 real parameters: cores, process node, base/boost frequency, L1/L2/L3 cache. No fake stats — TDP, yield, and die area punish you for being greedy.
— GPU design top-down on the actual PCB. Die in the middle, VRAM around it, PCIe fingers, power connectors — like the real photos.
— Fab system: Small / Medium / Large / Mega. You need physical capacity to ship anything. Outsource to TSMC or build your own — your call.
— Real-time business simulation with pause, because I'm not a sadist.
— 7 epochs from 1995 onwards, with real-ish tech progression. Watch the industry rediscover Moore's Law alongside you.
— Single-thread and multi-thread benchmarks that actually matter. Calibrated against real CPUs from 1995 to today, ±15% accuracy.
— Reviews from 3 in-game tech journalists who will rip your chip apart or make you a star.

▸ DLC — DEEP CPU ARCHITECTURES

Take it deeper. Pick an architecture archetype: Performance, Efficient, or Balanced. Unlock Branch Predictor and Pipeline Depth tuning. Then lay out your chip by hand on a 10×10 die grid — drop cores, cache blocks, controllers, and dodge thermal zones. Optimize for symmetry to boost yield. Possibly invent big.LITTLE before Apple does.

▸ WHY THIS GAME EXISTS

I wanted a tycoon game where the engineering is real, not a number that goes up. Where the difference between a good CPU and a great one is which cache size you picked and how you stacked your die. Where running a chip company means understanding why your competitor's chip beats yours, not just having more money than them.

If you played Game Dev Tycoon and wished it was about hardware — this is for you. If you like idle simulation and tech management games, you'll feel at home. If you read CPU reviews for fun, welcome.

▸ ROADMAP

The long-term goal is AI as the apex product — full progression from CPUs through GPUs through operating systems through AI. We're not there yet. The OS layer is next. After that, AI as the final boss of late-game.

Updates ship regularly. Bugs get fixed fast. New mechanics get added based on what players actually ask for.

▸ MADE BY ONE GUY IN LVIV

This is a solo project. If you find a bug, that's me. If you like it, also me. Email me, post on Reddit, leave a review — I read all of it.

Tags: tycoon, business simulation, chip designer, CPU simulator, GPU simulator, semiconductor industry, tech tycoon, factory tycoon, idle simulation, strategy management, indie sim.