Proposal for adding EDA support to KiCAD.
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Sagar Acharya
Apr 19, 2023, 2:21:46 PM4/19/23
to Devlist
Respected devs,
I was exploring into chip designs and except the aspects of automation of placement and routing and testing for logic, at the end, semiconductor chip design is extremely similar to designing a board.
It consists of a bunch of blocks for different Si layers, oxide layers, metal layers, etc. which in my view is already supported in kicad. If the grid size is set to be of order of lambda, a parameter in chip design, say like 40nm, an output of oasis file/edif file can result in a complete EDA.
I welcome your thoughts on this.
Thanking you
Sagar Acharya
https://designman.org
I was exploring into chip designs and except the aspects of automation of placement and routing and testing for logic, at the end, semiconductor chip design is extremely similar to designing a board.
It consists of a bunch of blocks for different Si layers, oxide layers, metal layers, etc. which in my view is already supported in kicad. If the grid size is set to be of order of lambda, a parameter in chip design, say like 40nm, an output of oasis file/edif file can result in a complete EDA.
I welcome your thoughts on this.
Thanking you
Sagar Acharya
https://designman.org
Sagar Acharya
Apr 19, 2023, 2:24:58 PM4/19/23
to Devlist
For this purpose in free software, there are a few softwares like
magic VLSI &
gdspy &
gdstk &
skywater-pdk
19 Apr 2023, 23:51 by sagara...@tutanota.com:
magic VLSI &
gdspy &
gdstk &
skywater-pdk
19 Apr 2023, 23:51 by sagara...@tutanota.com:
Mark Roszko
Apr 20, 2023, 8:50:41 PM4/20/23
to dev...@kicad.org
This is far out of scope for what KiCad is intended for and would
quickly be broken many times over as we don't have manpower or
interest to maintain it.
It's a lot more work than you make it seem to get it correct and
there'll be demands to add more and more.
Maybe 10 years from now when the board design feature set is actually
complete ;)
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Mark
quickly be broken many times over as we don't have manpower or
interest to maintain it.
It's a lot more work than you make it seem to get it correct and
there'll be demands to add more and more.
Maybe 10 years from now when the board design feature set is actually
complete ;)
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "KiCad Developers" group.
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Mark
Wayne Stambaugh
Apr 22, 2023, 8:09:54 AM4/22/23
to dev...@kicad.org
Hi Sagar,
There is definitely interest in including chip design capability in
KiCad, when that happens really depends on a lot of factors. I'm not
familiar with the code listed below, but a good start to getting a
feature like this into KiCad would be to ensure all of the code in the
list below is packaged for all the platforms supported by KiCad[1].
Once that hurdle is cleared, we would need to write a design document
about how we would integrate support for chip design into KiCad. After
the lead development team agrees on the design document, then we could
actually start any implementation as manpower becomes available.
Cheers,
Wayne
[1]: https://www.kicad.org/help/system-requirements/
There is definitely interest in including chip design capability in
KiCad, when that happens really depends on a lot of factors. I'm not
familiar with the code listed below, but a good start to getting a
feature like this into KiCad would be to ensure all of the code in the
list below is packaged for all the platforms supported by KiCad[1].
Once that hurdle is cleared, we would need to write a design document
about how we would integrate support for chip design into KiCad. After
the lead development team agrees on the design document, then we could
actually start any implementation as manpower becomes available.
Cheers,
Wayne
[1]: https://www.kicad.org/help/system-requirements/
Sagar Acharya
Apr 23, 2023, 10:31:30 AM4/23/23
to dev...@kicad.org
Who are the lead developers of KiCAD who take that decision? I think already KiCAD might be able to do this thing. The only thing not implemented is that of exporting an edif file.
22 Apr 2023, 17:39 by stamb...@gmail.com:
>
22 Apr 2023, 17:39 by stamb...@gmail.com:
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Henner Zeller
Apr 23, 2023, 11:19:33 AM4/23/23
to dev...@kicad.org
> Who are the lead developers of KiCAD who take that decision? I think already KiCAD might be able to do this thing. The only thing not implemented is that of exporting an edif file.
As usual in OpenSource, if you are interested in features to be
implemented, then coming up with a detailed list of features to
discuss on the list, then putting them on the issue/feature-request
tracker, followed by pull requests by you or people you can got
interested in the process is the best way to arrive at the features
you are interested in. The Lead developers will guide you through the
process with the right questions and will point out suggestions or
concerns. And they will be helping in the code reviews, but it is
ultimately _you_ who will end up being the lead developer for this
feature-set as you will make it happen.
Cheers,
-h
Wayne Stambaugh
Apr 24, 2023, 8:56:44 AM4/24/23
to dev...@kicad.org
I am the KiCad lead developer but the final decision for adding a
feature of this magnitude would require buy in from the lead development
team. If you interested in contributing to KiCad, we can discuss how to
move forward. I suspect that integrating chip design features into
KiCad will be far more difficult than exporting edif files. The
schematic and symbol editors would need to be modified to handle
assigning fab geometry to symbols and passing that information to the
board editor. The board and footprint editors will have to be modified
to support placing and editing the fab geometry. It may be possible to
do this with footprints but I'm not sure editing footprints will work
well with fab geometry. Any simulation outside of ngspice will also
need to be supported. My guess is that the edif export will be the easy
part. All this being said, I for one support the idea of integrating IC
fabrication into KiCad. We just need to do some planning in order to do
ensure this goes as smoothly as possible.
Cheers,
Wayne
feature of this magnitude would require buy in from the lead development
team. If you interested in contributing to KiCad, we can discuss how to
move forward. I suspect that integrating chip design features into
KiCad will be far more difficult than exporting edif files. The
schematic and symbol editors would need to be modified to handle
assigning fab geometry to symbols and passing that information to the
board editor. The board and footprint editors will have to be modified
to support placing and editing the fab geometry. It may be possible to
do this with footprints but I'm not sure editing footprints will work
well with fab geometry. Any simulation outside of ngspice will also
need to be supported. My guess is that the edif export will be the easy
part. All this being said, I for one support the idea of integrating IC
fabrication into KiCad. We just need to do some planning in order to do
ensure this goes as smoothly as possible.
Cheers,
Wayne
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