jgoeders/siliconcompiler

A modular build system for hardware

What is SiliconCompiler?

A modular build system for hardware ("make for silicon"). The project philosophy is to "make the complex possible while keeping the simple simple".

The project foundation is a standardized dynamic JSON schema for configuring and tracking of compile time parameters related to design setup, libraries, tools, Process Design Kits (PDKs), flows, constraints, compiler time options, and run time metrics, advanced projects (like ASICs) are far too complex to be handled manually through markup languages like JSON/YAML, so the project also includes a simple (but powerful) object oriented Python API for compilation setup, run time scheduling, and results analysis. For more information about the project motivation and design philosophy, you can refer to the following paper.

A. Olofsson, W. Ransohoff, N. Moroze, "Invited: A Distributed Approach to Silicon Compilation", 59th Design Automation Conference (DAC), 10-14 July 2022, San Francisco, CA, USA. Published, 7/2022.

Why SiliconCompiler?

• Ease-of-use: Programmable with a simple Python API
• Portability: Powerful dynamic JSON schema supports ASIC and FPGA design and simulation
• Speed: Flowgraph execution model enables cloud scale execution.
• Friction-less: Remote execution model enables "zero install" compilation
• Modularity: Tool abstraction layer makes it easy to add/port new tools to the project.
• Provenance: Compilation manifests created automatically during execution.
• Documented: An extensive set of auto-generated high quality reference documents.
• In-use: Actively used by Zero ASIC for commercial tapeouts at advanced process nodes.

Supported Technologies

Type	Supported
Languages	C, Verilog, SV, VHDL, Chisel, Migen/Amaranth, Bluespec
Simulation	Verilator, Icarus, GHDL
Synthesis	Yosys, Vivado, Synopsys, Cadence
ASIC APR	OpenRoad, Synopsys, Cadence
FPGA APR	VPR, nextpnr, Vivado
Layout Viewer	Klayout, OpenRoad, Cadence, Synopsys
DRC/LVS	Magic, Synopsys, Siemens
PDKs	sky130, asap7, freepdk45, gf12lp, intel16

Getting Started

SiliconCompiler is available as wheel packages on PyPI for macOS, Windows and Linux platforms. For working Python 3.6-3.11 environment, just use pip.

python -m pip install --upgrade siliconcompiler

Converting RTL into DRC clean GDS takes less than 10 lines of simple Python code.

import siliconcompiler                             # import python package
chip = siliconcompiler.Chip('heartbeat')           # create chip object
chip.load_target('skywater130_demo')               # load a pre-defined target
chip.input('heartbeat.v')                          # set input sources
chip.clock('clk', period=10)                       # set constraints
chip.set('option','remote', True)                  # enable remote execution
chip.run()                                         # run compilation
chip.summary()                                     # print summary
chip.show()                                        # show layout

Important

To run this code from a script, please add if __name__ == "__main__": as shown in the docs

To reduce the pain of tool installation, the project supports free remote compilation at siliconcompiler.com.

Simple designs can be compiled using the built in command line 'sc' app:

sc -remote -target "asic_demo"

Documentation

The full reference manual and tutorials can be found HERE.

Installation

Complete installation instructions are available in the Installation Guide.

To install the project from source (recommended for developers only).

git clone https://github.com/siliconcompiler/siliconcompiler
cd siliconcompiler
python -m pip install -e .             # Required install step
python -m pip install -e .[docs,test]  # Optional install step for generating docs and running tests

Tool Installation

Installation instructions for all external tools can be found in the External Tools section of the user guide. We have included shell setup scripts (Ubuntu) for most of the supported tools. See the ./setup directory for a complete set of scripts and ./setup/_tools.json for the currently recommended tool versions.

Contributing

SiliconCompiler is an open-source project and welcomes contributions. To find out how to contribute to the project, see our Contributing Guidelines.

Issues / Bugs

We use GitHub Issues for tracking requests and bugs.

License

Apache License 2.0

More information

Resources	Link
Website	https://www.siliconcompiler.com
Documentation	https://docs.siliconcompiler.com
Sources	https://github.com/siliconcompiler/siliconcompiler
Issues	https://github.com/siliconcompiler/siliconcompiler/issues
RFCs	https://github.com/siliconcompiler/rfcs
Discussion	https://github.com/siliconcompiler/siliconcompiler/discussions