This paper will present the physical hardware realization of a novel bio-inspired architecture, called POEtic tissue. This electronic tissue provides a platform for the efficient implementation in actual hardware of evolutionary, epigenetic (learning) and ontogenetic (growth, self-repair, self-replication) mechanisms. After a brief introduction the overall organization of the tissue will be presented. Then its main building blocks will be reviewed. Finally, the implementation details of the first hardware prototype of the tissue, constructed in the form of an ASIC, will be outlined. The implementation results demonstrate that the proposed architecture constitutes a good candidate when considering the electronic realization of bio-inspired principles.