/tae_2023

Repository for TAE 2023.

MIT LicenseMIT

EDA Tools Installation

Table of contents

The goal of this guide is to install the open-source EDA tool-set needed to go through some of the physical design flow stages, and correctly configure the Skywater PDK.

The following packages will be installed:

  • Netgen LVS

  • NGSpice

  • Skywater 130nm PDK

  • Magic VLSI

  • Klayout

  • OpenLANE

1. Ubuntu

The version of the Ubuntu distro should be 18.04+.

1.1 Prerequisites

In order to install the EDA tool-set within Ubuntu, previously you need to have installed some other required packages. To do so, first update and upgrade packages database and upgrade the packages to avoid version mismatches:

sudo apt -y update && sudo apt -y upgrade

Now we can proceed to install required packages:

  • git 2.35+

  • docker 19.03.12+

  • python 3.6* with pip and venv

  • GNU Make

  • Ruby

sudo apt install -y build-essential python3 python3-venv python3-pip make git ruby-full libqt5opengl5

1.2 Install pre-compiled packages

Since NGSpice and Netgen-LVS are available as pre-compiled packages, we can install them using apt too.

sudo apt install -y netgen-lvs ngspice ngspice-doc

Run the following to check it has been correctly installed:

ngspice
exit
netgen-lvs

1.3 Pre-setup

In order to organize the directory tree for EDA tool-set, let's create a folder to contain every tool needed for the course. To do so, got to your user /home directory.

cd ~/

Create the directory eda_tools and move into:

mkdir eda_tools
cd eda_tools

(WARNING: we will work over eda_tools folder all the time.)

1.4 Install Magic VLSI

The Skywater PDK requires Magic 8.3.25 or higher, thus we will build the latest version from source.

First install the required dependencies using apt:

  • M4 preprocessor

  • tcsh shell

  • csh shell

  • xlib.h

  • Tcl/Tk

  • Cairo

  • OpenGL

  • ncurses

cd ~/
sudo apt install -y m4 tcsh csh libx11-dev tcl-dev tk-dev libcairo2-dev mesa-common-dev libglu1-mesa-dev

Now, clone Magic VLSI git repository and change the working directory to cloned repository.

cd ~/eda_tools
git clone git://opencircuitdesign.com/magic
cd magic/

Finally, run the configuration script, compile and install magic into the default path /usr/local/.

./configure
make
sudo make install

(Note: by default the installation path is /usr/local/, you can change by adding --prefix=<path> to configure. It takes some time to finish.)

Run the following to check it has been correctly installed:

magic

1.5 Install Netgen-LVS (source code)

(Note: You should already have installed Magic VLSI)

Even when netgen-lvs usually it is available as precompiled package, typically does not works when installed by the package manager 'apt'. Therefore, we'll install it from source code.

cd ~/eda_tools
git clone https://github.com/RTimothyEdwards/netgen.git
cd netgen/
./configure
make
sudo make install

Run the following to check it has installed correctly:

netgen-lvs

1.5 Install Klayout

Klayout is an editor that allows to change GDS and OASIS files and create them from scratch.

To install Klayout you should have some dependencies installed.

  • Qt 4.7+

  • gcc 4.6+ or clang 3.8+

  • Ruby

(Note: some of these dependencies were already installed.)

This package should be installed from source code. To do so, first download the most recent .deb file and run:

cd ~/Downloads
sudo dpkg -i ./klayout_0.28.6-1_amd64.deb

(Note: If getting problems related to libqt dependencies, execute the following and try again sudo dpkg -i ./klayout....) sh sh sudo apt --fix-broken install

1.6 Install OpenLANE

OpenLane requires Docker images, so first of all you shall have installed docker.

Docker

To have a more clean installation of docker, do the next steps.

  1. Uninstall any such older versions before attempting to install a new version:
cd ~/
sudo apt remove docker docker-engine docker.io containerd runc
  1. Update the apt package index and install packages to allow apt to use a repository over HTTPS:
sudo apt -y update && sudo apt -y upgrade
sudo apt install -y ca-certificates curl gnupg
  1. Add Docker’s official GPG key:
sudo mkdir -m 0755 -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
  1. Use the following command to set up the repository:
echo "deb [arch="$(dpkg --print-architecture)" signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
"$(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME")" stable" | \
sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
  1. Update the apt package index:
sudo apt update
  1. Install Docker Engine, containerd, and Docker Compose.
sudo apt install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin
  1. Manage Docker as a non-root user

Create the docker group.

sudo groupadd docker

Add your user to the docker group.

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Activate the changes to groups.

newgrp docker
  1. Verify that the Docker Engine installation is successful by running the hello-world image:
docker run hello-world

(A succesfull instalation of Docker would have the following ouput)

Hello from Docker!

This message shows that your installation appears to be working correctly.

To generate this message, Docker took the following steps:

1. The Docker client contacted the Docker daemon.

2. The Docker daemon pulled the "hello-world" image from the Docker Hub. (amd64)

3. The Docker daemon created a new container from that image which runs the executable that produces the output you are currently reading.

4. The Docker daemon streamed that output to the Docker client, which sent it to your terminal.

To try something more ambitious, you can run an Ubuntu container with:

$ docker run -it ubuntu bash

Share images, automate workflows, and more with a free Docker ID:

https://hub.docker.com/

For more examples and ideas, visit:

https://docs.docker.com/get-started/

OpenLane

OpenLane also requires its own dependencies, some of them were installed previously, but verify them for sanity checks.

  1. Checking Installation Requirements

In order to check the installation, you can use the following commands:

git --version
docker --version
python3 --version
python3 -m pip --version
make --version
python3 -m venv -h
  1. Download OpenLane from GitHub and change the working directory to cloned repository.
cd ~/eda_tools
git clone https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenLane.git
cd OpenLane
  1. Copy and paste the following commands to add the environment variables to your .bashrc file. (You can either do it manually from any text editor or executing the following.)
echo "export OPENLANE_ROOT=\"/home/\$USER/eda_tools/OpenLane\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export PDK_ROOT=\"\$OPENLANE_ROOT/pdks\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export PDK_PATH=\"\$PDK_ROOT/sky130A\"" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
  1. Execute the following command to get the latest docker image for OpenLane.
sudo make all
  1. Build Sky130 PDK.
make pdk
  1. Finally, run a ~5 minute test that verifies that the flow and the PDK were properly installed.
make test

1.7 Install the PDK

After installing the needed tools, we can install the Skywater PDK. Since installing the full PDK is slow and requires a lot of storage, we’ll install a minimal version with the needed cells.

First, we have to clone the Skywater repository and initialize the needed submodules.

cd ~/eda_tools
git clone https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk.git
cd skywater-pdk/
git submodule init libraries/sky130_fd_io/latest
git submodule init libraries/sky130_fd_pr/latest
git submodule init libraries/sky130_fd_sc_hd/latest
git submodule update

(Note: the next command can take around 15 minutes to finish.)

make timing

Once the previous commands have finished their execution, go to your eda_tools directory:

cd ~/eda_tools

Now, clone the Open PDKs repo to configure and install the repository. Since we already cloned the Skywater PDK repo, we will indicate the configuration script where to find it, instead of pulling the full repo.

git clone https://github.com/RTimothyEdwards/open_pdks.git
cd open_pdks/
./configure --enable-sky130-pdk=~/eda_tools/skywater-pdk
make
sudo make install

(Note: by default the installation path is /usr/local/share/pdk, you can change by adding --prefix=<path>. Remember /opt and /usr/local are paths where you can save your external packages installation. It takes some time to finish.)

Adding env variables to .bashrc

The final step is to add environment variables to the .bashrc file, in order to use it in your flows.

(Note: You can add them either manually from any text editor or executing the following.)

PDK env variables

echo "export PDK_ROOT=\"/usr/local/share/pdk\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export PDK_PATH=\"\$PDK_ROOT/sky130A\"" >> ~/.bashrc

Aliases

You can use an alias called magicsky to run magic with the PDK tech file. Also, to use klayout create an alias called klayoutsky.

echo "alias magicsky=\"magic -T \$PDK_PATH/libs.tech/magic/sky130A.tech\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "alias klayoutsky=\"klayout -e -nn \$PDK_PATH/libs.tech/klayout/tech/sky130A.lyt -l \$PDK_PATH/libs.tech/klayout/tech/sky130A.lyp\"" >> ~/.bashrc

Once, all environment variables were added, load env vars to the system, to do so, run:

source ~/.bashrc

Freeing up disk space (Optional)

If desired, the installation repos can also be removed to free additional storage.

cd ~/eda_tools
rm -rf magic/
rm ~/Downloads/klayout_0.28.6-1_amd64.deb

(Note: We do not remove OpenLane repo because it is constantly updating.)

2. Fedora

2.1 Prerequisites

To install the required EDA tools in other non-debian based distros, we first check which is our package manager installed.

uname -a

Or, if you have the lsb_release package installed.

lsb_release -a

Fedora uses dnf as a package manager.

Knowing our package manager go to check if you have already installed the next packages.

  • git 2.35+

  • docker 19.03.12+

  • python 3.6* with pip and venv

  • GNU Make

  • Ruby

git --version

docker --version

python3 --version

python3 -m pip3 --version

make --version

If you do not have one of them, install it, by running:

sudo dnf install <pkg>

2.2 Pre-setup

In order to organize the directory tree for EDA tool-set, let's create a folder to contain every tool needed for the course. To do so, got to your user /home directory.

cd ~/

Create the directory eda_tools and move into:

mkdir eda_tools

cd eda_tools

(Note: in other linux distros it is recommended to install packages from source code, because there are some packages that are not into databases of your distro.)

2.3 Install NetGen LVS and NGSpice

Netgen LVS is a netlist generator use to compare Layout vs Schematic.

cd ~/eda_tools

git clone https://github.com/RTimothyEdwards/netgen.git

cd netgen/

./configure --prefix=/opt/netgen

make

sudo make install

NGSpice is an open source simulatori for electric and electronic circuits.

To install NGSpice from source code we keep in mind that the repository is under development, so in this case is better to install an stable version, as we see below.

2.4 Install Magic VLSI

Magic is a VLSI layout tool to do IC mask design.

To have a good complement with skywater pdk and magic, install the required dependencies before.

sudo dnf install m4 tcsh csh libx11-dev tcl-dev tk-dev libcairo2-dev mesa-common-dev libglu1-mesa-dev

Then, install magic from source code

cd ~/eda_tools

git clone https://github.com/RTimothyEdwards/magic.git

cd magic/

./configure

make

sudo make install

2.5 Install Klayout

Klayout is an editor that allows to change GDS and OASIS files and create them from scratch.

To install Klayout you should have some dependencies installed.

  • Qt 4.7+

  • gcc 4.6+ or clang 3.8+

  • Ruby

From source code

cd ~/eda_tools

git clone https://github.com/KLayout/klayout.git

cd klayout/

./build.sh

2.6 Install OpenLane

OpenLane is an open source tool to automate RTL to GDSII flow.

To install OpenLane is by using source code. OpenLane will not be install in your PC, instead it uses a docker container.

(Note: you should have installed the prerequisites before to install OpenLane.)

Docker

To have a more clean installation of docker, do the next steps.

  1. First, uninstall any such older versions before attempting to install a new version:
cd ~/

sudo apt remove docker docker-engine docker.io containerd runc
  1. Update the dnf package index and install packages to allow dnf to use a repository over HTTPS:
sudo dnf update && sudo dnf upgrade

sudo dnf install ca-certificates curl gnupg
  1. Add Docker’s official GPG key:
sudo mkdir -m 0755 -p /etc/apt/keyrings

curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg
  1. Use the following command to set up the repository:
echo "deb [arch="$(dpkg --print-architecture)" signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.gpg] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \

"$(. /etc/os-release && echo "$VERSION_CODENAME")" stable" | \

sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
  1. Update the dnf package index:
sudo dnf update
  1. Install Docker Engine, containerd, and Docker Compose.
sudo dnf install docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io docker-buildx-plugin docker-compose-plugin
  1. Manage Docker as a non-root user

Create the docker group.

sudo groupadd docker

Add your user to the docker group.

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Activate the changes to groups.

newgrp docker
  1. Verify that the Docker Engine installation is successful by running the hello-world image:
docker run hello-world

(A succesfull instalation of Docker would have the following ouput)

Hello from Docker!

This message shows that your installation appears to be working correctly.

To generate this message, Docker took the following steps:

1. The Docker client contacted the Docker daemon.

2. The Docker daemon pulled the "hello-world" image from the Docker Hub. (amd64)

3. The Docker daemon created a new container from that image which runs the executable that produces the output you are currently reading.

4. The Docker daemon streamed that output to the Docker client, which sent it to your terminal.

To try something more ambitious, you can run an Ubuntu container with:

$ docker run -it ubuntu bash

Share images, automate workflows, and more with a free Docker ID:

https://hub.docker.com/

For more examples and ideas, visit:

https://docs.docker.com/get-started/

OpenLane

OpenLane also requires its own dependencies, some of them were installed previously, but verify them for sanity checks.

  1. Checking Installation Requirements

In order to check the installation, you can use the following commands:

git --version

docker --version

python3 --version

python3 -m pip --version

make --version

python3 -m venv -h
  1. Download OpenLane from GitHub and change the working directory to cloned repository.
cd ~/eda_tools

git clone https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenLane.git

cd OpenLane
  1. Copy and paste the following commands to add the environment variables to your .bashrc file. (You can either do it manually from any text editor or executing the following.)
echo "export OPENLANE_ROOT=\"/home/\$USER/eda_tools/OpenLane\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export PDK_ROOT=\"\$OPENLANE_ROOT/pdks\"" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export PDK_PATH=\"\$PDK_ROOT/sky130A\"" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
  1. Execute the following command to get the latest docker image for OpenLane.
sudo make all
  1. Build Sky130 PDK.
make pdk
  1. Finally, run a ~5 minute test that verifies that the flow and the PDK were properly installed.
make test

2.7 Install the PDK

The PDK is the Process Design Kit where you have information about all standard cells.

First, we have to clone the Skywater repository and initialize the needed submodules.

cd ~/eda_tools

git clone https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk.git

cd skywater-pdk/

git submodule init libraries/sky130_fd_io/latest

git submodule init libraries/sky130_fd_pr/latest

git submodule init libraries/sky130_fd_sc_hd/latest

git submodule update

(Note: the next command can take around 15 minutes to finish.)

make timing

Once the previous commands have finished their execution, go to your eda_tools directory:

cd ~/eda_tools

Now, clone the Open PDKs repo to configure and install the repository. Since we already cloned the Skywater PDK repo, we will indicate the configuration script where to find it, instead of pulling the full repo.

git clone https://github.com/RTimothyEdwards/open_pdks.git

cd open_pdks/

./configure --enable-sky130-pdk=~/eda_tools/skywater-pdk

make

sudo make install

(Note: by default the installation path is /usr/local/share/pdk, you can change by adding --prefix=<path>. Remember /opt and /usr/local are paths where you can save your external packages installation. It takes some time to finish.)

Adding env variables to .bashrc

The final step is to add environment variables to the .bashrc file, in order to use it in your flows.

(Note: You can add them either manually from any text editor or executing the following.)

PDK env variables

echo "export PDK_ROOT=\"/usr/local/share/pdk\"" >> ~/.bashrc

echo "export PDK_PATH=\"\$PDK_ROOT/sky130A\"" >> ~/.bashrc

Extra aliases

You can use an alias called magicsky to run magic with the PDK tech file. Also, to use klayout create an alias called klayoutsky.

echo "alias magicsky=\"magic -T \$PDK_PATH/libs.tech/magic/sky130A.tech\"" >> ~/.bashrc

echo "alias klayoutsky=\"klayout -e -nn \$PDK_PATH/libs.tech/klayout/tech/sky130A.lyt -l \$PDK_PATH/libs.tech/klayout/tech/sky130A.lyp\"" >> ~/.bashrc

Once, all environment variables were added, load env vars to the system, to do so, run:

source ~/.bashrc

Freeing up disk space (Optional)

If desired, the installation repos can also be removed to free additional storage.

cd ~/eda_tools

rm -rf magic/

rm ~/Downloads/klayout_0.28.6-1_amd64.deb

3. Tests

  • OpenLANE Test

  • In order to verify OpenLANE was correctly installed and the variables needed are pointing to the PDK, move to OpenLane directory and run the following command:

cd ~/eda_tools/OpenLane
make test

You will see a process being executed, and will take around 5 min to finish.

The last lines should look like this:


.

.

.

[INFO]: There are no hold violations in the design at the typical corner.

[INFO]: There are no setup violations in the design at the typical corner.

[SUCCESS]: Flow complete.

[INFO]: Note that the following warnings have been generated:

[WARNING]: Current core area is too small for the power grid settings chosen. The power grid will be scaled down.

Basic test passed

  • Magic VLSI Test

(Note: This test requires that OpenLANE test has been succesfully completed.)

  • In order to verify magic was correctly installed and the alias was correctly set, move to /..../results/signoff/ :
cd ~/eda_tools/OpenLane/designs/spm/runs/openlane_test/results/signoff

and run the following command:

magicsky
  • The following two windows should appear:

Magic_gui.

  • If Magic is correctly installed and pointing to the PDK, the right-side layer pallet, will be displayed.

  • Klayout Test

(Note: This test requires that OpenLANE test has been succesfully completed.)

  • In order to verify Klayout was correctly installed and the alias was correctly set, move to /..../results/signoff/ :
cd ~/eda_tools/OpenLane/designs/spm/runs/openlane_test/results/signoff

and run the following command:

klayoutsky spm.gds
  • You should be able to watch the following GDS:

Klayout_gds

4. References

5. Resources