Open MPW Program: MPW-TWO is now open

[Jeff]

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                       ANNOUNCING MPW-TWO
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hello everyone -  we are pleased to announce MPW-TWO is now open for project submissions ( https://efabless.com/open_shuttle_program/2 ).  The deadline for project submissions for MPW-TWO is June 18, 2021.

A few highlights to point out for this iteration.  Caravel has been refactored.  A new repo called caravel_user_project ( https://github.com/efabless/caravel_user_project ) has been created and should be used as a starting point for projects for MPW-TWO.  This repo only contains the user_project_wrapper and user_proj_example.  The remaining files for caravel are maintained in a separate repo and can be optionally installed in caravel_user_project using a make install command.

Note there are two versions of  caravel — a full version and a lite version which only contains the Caravel RTL required for verification.   By default, the caravel-lite repo is installed when you run ‘make install’ after cloning the caravel_user_project repo.

Precheck has been updated to only verify user project repo and user_project_wrapper.gds.   Users no longer need to be concerned with DRC errors outside of the user_project_wrapper.  The precheck repo is up to date, but the precheck on the platform is still being updated.  I’ll send a note once the platform version is updated.

The tapeout process will integrate the user_project_wrapper.gds with the final version of Caravel for the shuttle.  You do not need to ‘make ship’ prior to submitting your project.

The compress and uncompress make targets have been updated to deal with large files and should not be modified.  The tapeout automation depends on the implementation for compression.

Analog support has been updated and formalized for MPW-TWO supporting users who need bare pads for high voltage or high frequency use cases.  We will post another update with details.

Registration on the Efabless site has been streamlined.  Users have the option to use Google or Github accounts in addition to LinkedIn for authentication.

Creating projects has been extended to allow you to create and manage the description and metadata directly at the time you create the project.  It is recommended that you copy and paste from your rendered README document into the description field for the project.  You can also provide the cover image used for the card display on the site.

We will schedule a web call to walk-through the updated flow in the next week and record the session for later reference.

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Jeff DiCorpo        

SVP Business Development

m: 408-896-2078