Author Topic: SkyWater Open Source PDK  (Read 896 times)

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Offline SiliconWizardTopic starter

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SkyWater Open Source PDK
« on: August 02, 2022, 07:15:26 pm »
Does anyone have experience with the SkyWater Open Source PDK here and would like to share?

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

Offline Weston

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Re: SkyWater Open Source PDK
« Reply #1 on: August 02, 2022, 08:24:23 pm »
I taped out a buck converter on the SKY130 PDK as part of a graduate class I took.

Still working on documentation, but all the work is on github: https://github.com/westonb/Open-PMIC-tapeout
I got the IC back and it works, at some point I threw together a powerpoint on some of the test results: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PC-O1CdMnBhfDeytuiA5FrbG7Jn2NufCA-8EJRJ2sE0/edit?usp=sharing

I would say its really cool that a modern PDK is fully open source. From an educational perspective there is going to be a big benefit that students can work with a real PDK and real device parameters. I learned a lot just going through the PDK. For example, it taught me that the PMOS/NMOS transistors in logic gates are actually sized differently than the "optimal" way taught in digital design classes.


From a commercial perspective its a bit unclear how successful its going to be as the tooling is pretty rough. I found and reported a number of bugs in the Magic VLSI software when designing my IC and there are still issues with full parasitic extraction in the layouts and no way to check or model the current density in the design or anything related to device lifetime or reliability. I mostly did analog layout but I think the toolchain for digital place and route is more mature, especially as it uses the foundry provided standard cell libraries. Less to go wrong there.

With the paid shuttle service you get ~10mm^2 of silicon for $10k, which is pretty amazing. If you are a startup trying to get something silicon proven it could be pretty compelling.
 
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