Silicon foundry PDKs are notoriously non-standard, and files obtained from the foundry may end up in any possibly configuration of files and folders. In addition, silicon foundries are notorious among open source EDA tool enthusiasts for supplying user setups for commercial EDA tools and all but ignoring open source EDA tools. Open_pdks aims to mitigate the problem by defining a standard layout of files and directories for known open standard formats (e.g., SPICE, verilog, liberty, LEF, etc.) and for various open source EDA tools (e.g., magic, netgen, OpenROAD, klayout) using a Makefile system and a number of conversion scripts to ensure that for any process, all files needed by all EDA tools can be found in predictable locations.The scripts aim to be as general-purpose as possible to allow easy adaptation to new tools, formats, and foundries. Where foundry data is intractably unusable, custom install files can be added to overwrite or annotate vendor data as needed.
Open_PDKs is distributed with files that support the Google/SkyWater sky130 open process description and the Google/GlobalFoundries gf180mcu open process description. The original (archived) repository for the sky130 process can be found at github.com:google/skywater-pdk, and the original repository for the gf180mcu process can be found at gitub.com:google/gf180mcu-pdk.
Open_PDKs will set up an environment for using the SkyWater sky130 and GlobalFoundries gf180mcu processes with open-source EDA tools and tool flows such as magic, qflow, openlane, netgen, klayout, etc.
For more information on the Google/Skywater, Google/GlobalFoundries, and IHP SG13G2 process, please join the Matrix/Element workspace from this URL, where you will find a community of experts and enthusiasts on open source silicon: https://fossi-chat.org
See also the process description at the following URL: https://skywater-pdk.readthedocs.io and https://gf180mcu-pdk.readthedocs.io
After the end of the Google-sponsored shuttle runs on sky130 and gf180MCU, the open PDK repositories were forked to the Efabless account on github. Since the shutdown of Efabless Corporation at the end of February, 2025, the open PDF repositories have been moved to the FOSSi Foundation account on github. In the process of the first fork to Efabless, the top-level repository was eliminated, and the PDK sources now comprise only the individual library repositories (standard cells, I/O cells, device models, etc.). See FOSSi Foundation github account
NOTE: Since this web page was first created, the number of open PDK definitions has increased beyond the initial Sky130 process; open_pdks also supports GlobalFoundries GF180MCU. IHP foundry in Frankfurt (Oder), Germany has created their own open PDK as well, but since they chose to natively use my open_pdks file structure, there is no need to process the IHP SG13G2 open PDK through the open_pdks builder.
Also, since this page was first created, there is now a PDK package manager application called ciel that can handle installation of pre-built PDKs, making life easier for the end-user, who does not have to do the build manually. See "ciel" PDK package manager
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Last updated: September 9, 2025 at 9:44pm