How possible is it really for an electronics newb to learn enough to make a working ASIC?

I did it. Took some time, but definetly possible. If you are just making digital only ASIC it should be pretty easy

How long did it take you? Also like are there hidden costs besides the like 10K if you go the chipignite route?

For my IO cell IP it took 6 months for the design in very relaxed pace. And a year to learn everything for it. The digital one, was like one week. But I have software/fpga experience, so it was not from scratch. No hidden costs, but would recommend to start with FPGAs and stuff first, to get grip on things

Gotcha, I've got software experience but no electronics experience. So you'd recommend doing designs in FPGA before trying to port to asic?

We had participants from analysts background who taped out analog IPs using SKY130 in 10-weeks https://www.vlsisystemdesign.com/ip/

That's awesome. What would you recommend for a learning path/curriculum for getting to VLSI level designs?

First recommendation - High Patience level 🙂 Second recommendation - Tips (either you can learn from YouTube or below Udemy links) Tips on the order in which you need to learn VLSI and become a CHAMPION: If I would have been you, I would have started with the Physical Design course where I understand the entire flow first then would have moved to CTS-1 and CTS-2 to look into details of how the clock is been built. Then, as you all know how crosstalk impacts functioning at lower nodes, I would go for a Signal Integrity course to understand the impacts of scaling and fix them Once I do that, I would want to know how to analyze the performance of my design and I would have to go for STA-1, STA-2 and Timing ECO webinar courses, respectively Once you STA, there’s an internal curiosity which rises and wants us to understand, what goes inside timing analysis at the transistor level. To fulfil that, I would have taken Circuit design and SPICE simulations Part 1 and Part 2 courses And finally, to understand pre-placed cells, IPs and STA in even more detail, I would have taken a custom layout course and Library Characterization course All of the above needs to be implemented using a CAD tool and needs to be done faster, for which I would have written TCL or Perl scripts. So for that, I would start to learn TCL-Part1 and TCL-Part2 courses, at the very beginning or in middle Finally, if I want to learn RTL and synthesis, from specifications to layout, the RISC-V ISA course will teach the best way to define specs for a complex system like a microprocessor

Thank you so much for this comprehensive response

Regarding hidden costs: You will get both 5 demo-PCBs with your chips readily populated, and hundred(s) of bare chips, which you could design into your own device afterwards.