Quote Originally Posted by RSL Jr.
Circuit design is still a lot of programming too. For one of my classes I had to design a pipelined CPU that ran an ISA with variable-length instructions, i.e. some took more clock cycles than others. It's all still programming, it's just that the "language" you have to work with is rudimentary logic, wires and gates. So far as chip design, i.e. laying out a circuit onto a board and making it small and fast, I wouldn't know where to begin.
I see where you're coming from, but I see chip design as an architectural endeavor that uses micro/programming rather than the other way around. I can see it as both though, but then my head gets all confused. *shruggles*

[q=Samuraid]It's another to just build a 32-bit ALU. [/q]
Yeah, and then make it useful by sticking it appropriately into the computer architecture. The ALU design project I had was kinda fun, though.