Introduction
SiliconCompiler is a modular hardware build system ("make for silicon"). The project philosophy is to "make the complex possible while keeping the simple simple".
Supported Technologies
| Type | Supported |
|---|---|
| Design Languages | C, Verilog, SV, VHDL, Chisel, Migen/Amaranth, Bluespec, MLIR |
| Simulation Tools | Verilator, Icarus, GHDL, Xyce |
| Synthesis | Yosys, Vivado, Synopsys, Cadence |
| ASIC APR | OpenROAD, Synopsys, Cadence |
| FPGA APR | VPR, nextpnr, Vivado |
| Layout Viewer | Klayout, OpenROAD, Cadence, Synopsys |
| DRC/LVS | Klayout, Magic, Synopsys, Siemens |
| Open PDKs | sky130, ihp130, gf180, asap7, freepdk45, gt2n, interposer — all shipped by lambdapdk |
| Foundry PDKs | gf12lp, gf22fdx, intel16 — require a foundry agreement; package them yourself following the external library guide |
Getting Started
SiliconCompiler is available as wheel packages on PyPI for macOS, Windows and Linux platforms. For working Python 3.10-3.14 environment, just use pip. On Windows, use remote or Docker execution — local tool flows are supported on Linux and macOS.
pip install --upgrade siliconcompiler
Converting RTL into DRC clean GDS takes 13 lines of simple Python code.
(asicflow reports geometric violations from detailed routing as the drcs metric, and electrical ones — slew, capacitance, fanout, antenna — as drvs. Signoff DRC and LVS run in the separate signoffflow.)
from siliconcompiler import ASIC, Design # import python package
from siliconcompiler.targets import skywater130_demo
design = Design("heartbeat") # create design object
design.set_topmodule("heartbeat", fileset="rtl") # set top module
design.add_file("heartbeat.v", fileset="rtl") # add input sources
design.add_file("heartbeat.sdc", fileset="sdc") # add input sources
project = ASIC(design) # create project
project.add_fileset(["rtl", "sdc"]) # enable filesets
skywater130_demo(project) # load a pre-defined target
project.option.set_remote(True) # enable remote execution
project.run() # run compilation
project.summary() # print summary
project.show() # show layout
[!NOTE] The required files can be found at: heartbeat example
Not building an ASIC?
The example above is an ASIC build, but the same Design feeds every flow. The
project class is what decides what happens to it:
| Goal | Class | Tools needed | Start here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lint your RTL | Lint |
none | Lint your RTL |
| Simulate, or prove properties formally | Sim |
Verilator, Icarus, GHDL or SymbiYosys | Simulate and verify |
| Build an FPGA bitstream | FPGA |
Yosys, plus VPR or nextpnr | Build for an FPGA |
Linting is the quickest way to see SiliconCompiler work: the default linter ships as a Python package, so it needs no EDA tools installed at all. For a complete FPGA build with nothing installed locally, the demo runs remotely:
python3 -m siliconcompiler.demos.fpga_demo -remote
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.
Documentation
New here? Start with the Quickstart guide, which walks through the example above line by line.
The SiliconCompiler reference manual and tutorials cover the rest.
License
How to Cite
If you want to cite our work, please use 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.
Bibtex:
@inproceedings{10.1145/3489517.3530673,
author = {Olofsson, Andreas and Ransohoff, William and Moroze, Noah},
title = {A Distributed Approach to Silicon Compilation: Invited},
year = {2022},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 59th ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference},
pages = {1343–1346},
location = {San Francisco, California}
}
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
python3 -m venv .venv # Setup virtual environment
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip # Update pip
pip install -e . # Required install step
pip install -e .[test,lint] # Optional install step for running tests and lint
pip install -e .[docs] # Optional install step for generating docs
EDA 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, which can be accessed via sc-install. See the siliconcompiler/toolscripts directory for a complete set of scripts and siliconcompiler/toolscripts/_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.
Getting help
Discussions is the best place to ask a question. The Help (Q&A) category is actively answered and is worth searching before you post — the answer to "how do I harden a macro", "how are filesets ordered" or "why won't this PDK build" is often already there.
Also useful:
- Frequently asked questions
- How do I…? — a task-oriented reference
- Glossary
We use GitHub Issues
for tracking requests and bugs. If you hit a tool failure,
sc-issue
packages a runnable test case to attach.
More information
| Resources | Link |
|---|---|
| Website | https://www.siliconcompiler.com |
| Documentation | https://docs.siliconcompiler.com |
| Discussions | https://github.com/siliconcompiler/siliconcompiler/discussions |
| Sources | https://github.com/siliconcompiler/siliconcompiler |
| Issues | https://github.com/siliconcompiler/siliconcompiler/issues |
| Open PDKs | https://github.com/siliconcompiler/lambdapdk — every open PDK and standard cell library SiliconCompiler ships |
| Portable RTL libraries | https://github.com/siliconcompiler/lambdalib — technology-independent blocks, including the pad ring |
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