Hello All, We managed to make the pinlist and precheck for the mock tapeout - please see the links available in the README in our main branch: https://github.com/JorgeMarinN/3LFCC_AC3E Some notes/Qs: • We still have the consistency fails in our check, but we assume this is still the bug reported by @mehdi • We found some DRC error in our core layout, we were getting some Klayout FEOL errors not evident with the full Magic DRC- to be checked -, so finally we decided not to include it and to connect the pins to be used with resistors. Please let us know if this is fine. • We tried to run the precheck with docker but it didn't work, did anyone manage to do it?

Thanks for posting. When you say you "tried to run the precheck with docker but it didn't work" do you mean that it wouldn't run, or that it ran to completion but you got unresolvable errors? I noticed

MPW Precheck failed to get Open PDKs & Skywater PDK versions

What does this return?

git -C /home/jorge/Documents/Postdoc/chipathon2022/precheck_example/pdkroot_test/open_pdks rev-parse --verify HEAD

Hello Mitch, thanks for checking and replying. Indeed, I didn't realize about this. The command returns the following: "fatal: cannot change to '/home/jorge/Documents/Postdoc/chipathon2022/precheck_example/pdkroot_test/open_pdks': No such file or directory" when I do "ls /home/jorge/Documents/Postdoc/chipathon2022/precheck_example/pdkroot_test/" I see the following: sky130A/ sky130B/ volare/ There's actually something weird about the installation because I had to change the user_analog_project_wrapper.mag generated in the analog caravel, as follows original: tech $PDK new: tech sky130A any ideas if these issues could be related?

Maybe the

MPW Precheck failed to get Open PDKs & Skywater PDK versions

error can be ignored because the volare installation does not include the open_pdks or skywater_pdks repos.

Who can help us confirming @Mitch Bailey's comment, and that we don't need anything else for the mock tapeout step? @Mitch Bailey @Boris Murmann @mehdi @Tim Edwards

@Jorge Marin I’m not sure if we are on the same platform, but I was able to successfully run the precheck locally (not on the efabless website) with the pre-check docker container. Is this what you are referring to? I also always had the

MPW Precheck failed to get Open PDKs & Skywater PDK versions

error. I looked into it a little a while ago and I can confirm @Mitch Bailey’s comment. It seems that the precheck is looking for the Open-PDK git commit hash in the

$PDK_ROOT

but Volare doesn’t keep the any of the open-pdk git information so it fails. I also just hard coded the tech to be sky130A; not sure if that was the best thing to do, but it’s not related to the open pdk version. I wanted an error incase I accidentally was using sky130B.

You don't don't need to do anything else for the mock tapeout step.

@Micah Tseng thanks for confirming about the message 🙂 Yes, indeed, our students where trying to follow @mehdi's tutorial from within @Harald Pretl's group docker, but they didn't manage to do the first steps. We thought that, since many people recommend it was the easiest approach, the check was possible to do there. But considering, the permission errors and missing software (volare?), maybe this assumption is wrong.

@Jorge Marin Ok, You can run it in docker, but it’s super hard b/c for various reasons it is really hard to run docker inside of docker and the pre-check calls another docker container (don’t ask why I’ve tried, but I have and it wasn’t a good time 🙂 ). If you really wanted to run the precheck inside of docker, I would recommend taking a look at this post and building your own container https://devopscube.com/run-docker-in-docker/. But I would instead recomend installing Volare locally (on your actual hardware and not in a docker container) and running the pre-check locally.

@Micah Tseng thanks for the hints Just to be sure: then the only way of running the precheck is to have Linux installed locally? I'm the only one in my group who has it...

Ah, Well, there are a few options: I have run it just fine on OSX (apple Si) and Linux (PopOS!). If your students are using Windows machines, it’s totally possible to use WSL. Or you can use a linux virtual machine.