Hi, I'm studying the changes of the new volare commit in comparison to my current installation of the tools made 1 month ago. I have some questions that could be interesting to the group • There's a changelog between volare commits? • What is the

gf180mcu_ef_io.gds

purpose? It only contains a bi_t indicator of all pins in the design. Where should I use it? Maybe it's like those frames used on digital design that only contains connectivity information • It seems that

libs.tech/klayout

structure integrates the corrected disposition :) • There are changes in

magic/gf180mcuD.tech

, Is this reducing the problems that magic has with some layers and drc?

@aquiles viza

• There’s a changelog between volare commits?

There’s a change log between open_pdks commits. The volare commits match the open_pdks commits.

• What is the

gf180mcu_ef_io.gds

purpose? It only contains a bi_t indicator of all pins in the design. Where should I use it? Maybe it’s like those frames used on digital design that only contains connectivity information

The

gf180mcu_ef_io.gds

(as opposed to the

gf180mcu_fd_io.gds

) contains cells that efabless (

ef

) has modified (usually for LVS) as opposed to those from the foundry (

fd

). These are mask layer equivalent to the foundry cells. One change that was probably made was to the corner cells where the foundry implementation of 45 degree shapes was causing extreme read/extract times in magic.

• It seems that

libs.tech/klayout

structure integrates the corrected disposition 🙂

👍

• There are changes in

magic/gf180mcuD.tech

, Is this reducing the problems that magic has with some layers and drc?

Probably adding some support for analog designs.

So the latest volare release is delayed like 2 weeks from the current open_pdk master commit. I think my installation should rely on open_pdks, not volare, to get the latests features. Thanks David.

The

gf180mcu_ef_io.gds

adds an overlay to the

bi_t

pad that allows a direct connection from a core-side pin to the pad (through a resistor), the same way that is done on the Sky130 GPIO pad. I wanted to do this to prepare an updated GF caravel version to allow analog circuits to connect out to the pads. That change was not implemented for the 2nd GF open MPW because it was too close to the deadline and would have involved changes to the user project wrapper that would have affected all existing projects.