VLSI Open-Source Tool Installation Instructions

Here’s a list of instructions to install various open-source tools for VLSI design, including Yosys, OpenROAD, Magic, KLayout, and NGspice. These steps are for Linux-based systems (typically Ubuntu or other Debian-based distributions). This requires a minimum of Ubuntu 20.04. Most of the below tools have dependencies packaged along with the source to build and compile. However, there could be requirements in the process that OS throws Warnings or Errors on the dependencies required.

VLSI Flows:

1. Semi Custom
2. Full Custom

List of tools required:

1. Xschem
2. Ngspice
3. Magic
4. Klayout
5. Any RTL Simulator of choice
6. Openroad flow

Xschem

Github source : https://github.com/StefanSchippers/xschem

Installation steps:

git clone https://github.com/StefanSchippers/xschem.git xschem-src
cd xschem-src
./configure
sudo make install

Test the setup:

xschem

Ngspice

This is a packaged tool and hence can be directly downloaded, installed. The source to do so is here.

Magic

Project Page : http://opencircuitdesign.com/magic/

Installation steps:

git clone https://github.com/RTimothyEdwards/magic
./configure [options]
make
make install

Look for INSTALL file to know more about the [options]

Klayout

This is a packaged tool, can be downloaded and built from here.

Yosys

  sudo apt-get update
  git clone https://github.com/YosysHQ/yosys.git
  cd yosys
  sudo apt install make (If make is not installed please install it) 
  sudo apt-get install build-essential clang bison flex \
libreadline-dev gawk tcl-dev libffi-dev git \
graphviz xdot pkg-config python3 libboost-system-dev \
libboost-python-dev libboost-filesystem-dev zlib1g-dev
  make config-gcc
  make 
  sudo make install

Openroad

RTL-to-GDS flow built entirely on open-source tools. To build the binaries and run gcd through the flow:

Minimum: 1 CPU core and 8GB RAM.

Recommended: 4 CPU cores and 16GB of RAM.

Installation Methods

1. Docker
2. Pre-built Binaries
3. WSL - Not Recommended
4. Local Installation

The following instructions install & build using Local Installation

git clone --recursive https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD-flow-scripts

cd OpenROAD-flow-scripts

sudo ./setup.sh

./build_openroad.sh --local

Verify Installation :

The binaries should be available on your $PATH after setting up the environment.

source ./env.sh
yosys -help
openroad -help
cd flow
make

Environment variables are used in the OpenROAD flow to define various platform, design and tool specific variables to allow finer control and user overrides at various flow stages. These are defined in the config.mk file located in the platform and design specific directories.

Following the steps outlined above, you can set up all the essential open-source tools for VLSI design. Ensure that your system has the required dependencies installed before proceeding with the installations. These tools are regularly updated, so it's a good practice to periodically check for updates to take advantage of new features or bug fixes.

Thanks to the open source community that democratised chip design.