8 ms·

KiCad Joins Linux Foundation to Advance Electronic Design Automation

143 points by paddi91 7y ago

xvilka 7y ago
Hopefully, EDA tools for chip-design will get similar attention too, as well as a "normal" CADs. Software like LibreCAD[1] and FreeCAD[2], Qucs[3], gEDA[4], Yosys[5] and Symbiflow[6], Chisel/FIRRTL[7], OpenROAD initiative[8], Degate[9], and many others. [1] https://librecad.org/ https://librecad.org/ [2] https://www.freecadweb.org/ https://www.freecadweb.org/ [3] https://github.com/Qucs https://github.com/Qucs [4] http://www.geda-project.org/ http://www.geda-project.org/ [5] http://www.clifford.at/yosys/ http://www.clifford.at/yosys/ [6] https://symbiflow.github.io/ https://symbiflow.github.io/ [7] https://www.chisel-lang.org/ https://www.chisel-lang.org/ [8] https://theopenroadproject.org/ https://theopenroadproject.org/ [9] https://github.com/nitram2342/degate https://github.com/nitram2342/degate
- gravypod 7y ago
  Is there a high level overview, for programmers, of how chip design software works? Something I eventually want to investigate is building some of those pieces of software but I have no idea where to get started learning about that ecosystem. From a software perspective I have a good understanding of how source gets turned into machine code, which gets packaged into shared object code, which then gets linked into a binary. How do those steps work for HDLs? What standards are involved? How do you test that each of those steps works?
  - nimish 7y ago
    Start with an electrical and computer engineering course. Some eda tools are literally fancy vector graphics engines. Some are em simulators wrapped up. Others are circuit modeing tools. It's not really like programming. The tools are deeply integrated into the physics of the system.
    - gravypod 7y ago
      > It's not really like programming. The tools are deeply integrated into the physics of the system. What specifically makes electronics different from modeling other systems with software? DSP immediately comes to mind as something that is explicitly tied to Maxwell but there is really good software out there for describing, modeling, and creating signal processing components similar to how you'd write software. An example of this could be GNU Radio. Is there something that prevents the creation of workflow automation tools, abstractions, and "compilers"/DSLs? Do engineers at Intel, AMD, and Nvidia manually lay out each feature in their chip designs? If not, what workflow tools have they developed internally? Could those tools, or similar, be used for smaller scale circuit design?
      - unlinked_dll 7y ago
        There’s nothing fundamentally different about modeling electronics. It’s just that modeling nonlinear dynamical systems is a tough nut to crack, be it electronics, weather, heat transfer, whatever. SPICE is pretty good at it, but the newer modeling tools (that dates to the 1970s) are proprietary. As for the DSLs/workflow/etc there are companies in this space.
      - minxomat 7y ago
        > Do engineers at Intel, AMD, and Nvidia manually lay out each feature in their chip designs? If not, what workflow tools have they developed internally? Could those tools, or similar, be used for smaller scale circuit design? The answer is yes, but of course not exclusively. There was an English talk at ccc a while ago by an AMD engineer with lots of details on the whole process.
        Taniwha 7y ago
        Not every feature, typically there will be a physical team that will lay out a gate library, data paths and srams for any particular process - but the bulk of the gates are laid out by CAD tools from high level languages using gates from the gate library
  - HarryBeadle 7y ago
    Take a look at Verilog-to-Routing - an educational/research tool that is open-source. https://github.com/verilog-to-routing/vtr-verilog-to-routing https://github.com/verilog-to-routing/vtr-verilog-to-routing
    - gravypod 7y ago
      That looks like a great resource! Thank you!
  - blcArmadillo 7y ago
    I haven't personally taken these so can't comment on quality but there is: 1. https://www.coursera.org/learn/vlsi-cad-logic https://www.coursera.org/learn/vlsi-cad-logic 2. https://www.coursera.org/learn/vlsi-cad-layout https://www.coursera.org/learn/vlsi-cad-layout
  - redis_mlc 7y ago
    The GP mixed up hardware compiler and board layout tools. KiCad (funded by CERN) and LibreCAD are pretty good PCB layout and routing tools. Since Autodesk bought Eagle, they're the Open Source "great hopes." For PCB tools, you should just join an existing project since there's several Open Source ones and we need better ones, not more. This is a suitable long-term hobby if you occasionally make boards yourself. Especially welcome if you work on the parts library UI and items. Chisel, etc. are hardware compiler tools, not board layout tools. You should get a job at a chip or HFT company and have them pay you to learn and apply this stuff. The commercial software is shitty since the vendors spend more on keeping their license dongles up-to-date than adding features. Source: worked at a company that designed a 400 million transistor chip. Most of my X-co-workers worked on the A11 and A12.
- Cyph0n 7y ago
  EDA tools are a different beast... There is a reason why the field is completely monopolized by the big three - Cadence, Synopsys, and Mentor Graphics. And a lot of the tools you mentioned are targeted towards FPGA design rather than full or semi-custom ASIC design. The big three have tools that can handle both.
  - paulgerhardt 7y ago
    Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Relative to something like Microsoft Office they’re tiny and we have open competitive solutions there (a product notorious for a billion corner cases). And let’s not forget “EDA software” was single handedly pioneered by one woman and some lisp. Before then, it was hundreds of men taping out circuits on 4x8’ ply with...physical tape who all complained the labor and complexity costs were enormous and nothing could be done. If we really want to point fingers, we could say it’s a monopoly on the supply chain side of manufacturing - costing millions in NRE’s to make a chip - but if you are willing to scrimp on process size you can get it done for $3 per layer per reticle at 500nm scale and $50 per mask.
    - choudanu4 7y ago
      Since you seem to know, what company would one go to for fabricating a 500nm chip these days at that price?
      - JetSpiegel 7y ago
        500nm feature size is positively ancient. Any of the myriad fabless companies won't even care about those dinosaur technologies. I would try the local university with an electronics program.
    - therealcamino 7y ago
      To make things more concrete than "big" or "relatively...tiny", some quick googling puts Cadence's annual R&D spending at a little less than $1B and Synopsys's around $1.2B. Mentor Graphics is part of Siemens, so that'd be harder to figure out.
ur-whale 7y ago
Kicad is an amazing tool. Not easy to get into, kind of like vim in that regard, but when mastered, it's really powerful. With that in place, I wish it had: . Something to import LTSpice files directly into its schematics tool (or even better, go back and forth) . A rough but well integrated auto-router . A better parts library management system (the current one is really bad). But even without those, designing electronics circuits with KiCad is a blast once you've mastered it. And it's free ...
- HarryBeadle 7y ago
  You can simulate using SPICE in KiCad now (ngspice). KiCad already has an auto-router? But yeah, parts management is a mess...
  - DominoTree 7y ago
    KiCad's native autorouter was deprecated a while back (unless someone added it again in a recent point release)
  - ur-whale 7y ago
    >You can simulate using SPICE in KiCad now (ngspice). Yes, but LTSPice is so much better than ngspice. I really wish the Linear would OpenSource it, it's a really cool piece of software. KiCad does not really have a very well integrated auto-router. As someone pointed out, the only "integrated" one was deprecated, and all the others I've tried are very clunky (from the pov of being integrated).
- nrp 7y ago
  Library management is a little messy, but on the other hand it’s great that the master version of it is just a GitHub repository. That makes it really easy to pull down the latest, add new parts as you work on a project, and submit pull requests to share them back.
  - baybal2 7y ago
    I remember there was a company trying to make "EDA library" as a service with online API. I wonder if they are still around and if one can use their API from KiCad
amelius 7y ago
How/where are people getting their PCBs manufactured and assembled? Are cheap chinese services reliable? How do you protect your IP when using manufacturing services?
- ur-whale 7y ago
  If you open-source your "IP" (I'm quoting it, because the very name offends me), the problem magically goes away. But then, that's something culturally almost impossible to even imagine from people who hark from the HW design world.
  - lnsru 7y ago
    When you open source your hardware IP, you can buy it from Aliexpress few weeks later. That’s why I’ll never put final design on public github repository. For first prototype it’s ok. Final design brings in a cost of few thousand euros for electromagnetic compatibility measurement and I’ll definitely not give away this one.
    - clarry 7y ago
      > When you open source your hardware IP, you can buy it from Aliexpress few weeks later. Sounds like an easy way to get others to do your work for you for free. Win win. Why go through the hassle of establishing a supply chain. So what's the catch? Why are we still labouring instead of waiting for our products to magically ship themselves through Aliexpress?
- HarryBeadle 7y ago
  Your IP is in more danger when sending your designs to China for cheap fab, but is safer when going with more expensive local options (PCBTrain, for example). It's all about trust.
- rowanG077 7y ago
  The first thought you should be having is what are you actually protecting? Is the value of your product in the PCB? Keep in mind that even moderately complex PCBs can be reverse engineered relatively easily.
kyaghmour 7y ago
Most importantly, KiCad needs funding: https://funding.communitybridge.org/projects/kicad https://funding.communitybridge.org/projects/kicad
josteink 7y ago
Nothing bad about KiCad (don’t know it), but the Linux foundation have recently been caught neck deep in what seems like a (needless) identity politics controversy. TLDR: it kicked out white males trying to mostly have a reasonable conversation on Twitter from attending its events, while allowing an openly and viciously racist and sexist black woman to attend the same event, with her asking for “safe spaces” to top the irony. Needless to say, my respect for the Linux foundation has plummeted. They’re clearly off my donation-lists now.

143 points by paddi91 7y ago

Hopefully, EDA tools for chip-design will get similar attention too, as well as a "normal" CADs. Software like LibreCAD[1] and FreeCAD[2], Qucs[3], gEDA[4], Yosys[5] and Symbiflow[6], Chisel/FIRRTL[7], OpenROAD initiative[8], Degate[9], and many others. [1] https://librecad.org/ https://librecad.org/ [2] https://www.freecadweb.org/ https://www.freecadweb.org/ [3] https://github.com/Qucs https://github.com/Qucs [4] http://www.geda-project.org/ http://www.geda-project.org/ [5] http://www.clifford.at/yosys/ http://www.clifford.at/yosys/ [6] https://symbiflow.github.io/ https://symbiflow.github.io/ [7] https://www.chisel-lang.org/ https://www.chisel-lang.org/ [8] https://theopenroadproject.org/ https://theopenroadproject.org/ [9] https://github.com/nitram2342/degate https://github.com/nitram2342/degate

gravypod 7y ago
Is there a high level overview, for programmers, of how chip design software works? Something I eventually want to investigate is building some of those pieces of software but I have no idea where to get started learning about that ecosystem. From a software perspective I have a good understanding of how source gets turned into machine code, which gets packaged into shared object code, which then gets linked into a binary. How do those steps work for HDLs? What standards are involved? How do you test that each of those steps works?
- nimish 7y ago
  Start with an electrical and computer engineering course. Some eda tools are literally fancy vector graphics engines. Some are em simulators wrapped up. Others are circuit modeing tools. It's not really like programming. The tools are deeply integrated into the physics of the system.
  - gravypod 7y ago
    > It's not really like programming. The tools are deeply integrated into the physics of the system. What specifically makes electronics different from modeling other systems with software? DSP immediately comes to mind as something that is explicitly tied to Maxwell but there is really good software out there for describing, modeling, and creating signal processing components similar to how you'd write software. An example of this could be GNU Radio. Is there something that prevents the creation of workflow automation tools, abstractions, and "compilers"/DSLs? Do engineers at Intel, AMD, and Nvidia manually lay out each feature in their chip designs? If not, what workflow tools have they developed internally? Could those tools, or similar, be used for smaller scale circuit design?
    - unlinked_dll 7y ago
      There’s nothing fundamentally different about modeling electronics. It’s just that modeling nonlinear dynamical systems is a tough nut to crack, be it electronics, weather, heat transfer, whatever. SPICE is pretty good at it, but the newer modeling tools (that dates to the 1970s) are proprietary. As for the DSLs/workflow/etc there are companies in this space.
    - minxomat 7y ago
      > Do engineers at Intel, AMD, and Nvidia manually lay out each feature in their chip designs? If not, what workflow tools have they developed internally? Could those tools, or similar, be used for smaller scale circuit design? The answer is yes, but of course not exclusively. There was an English talk at ccc a while ago by an AMD engineer with lots of details on the whole process.
      - Taniwha 7y ago
        Not every feature, typically there will be a physical team that will lay out a gate library, data paths and srams for any particular process - but the bulk of the gates are laid out by CAD tools from high level languages using gates from the gate library
- HarryBeadle 7y ago
  Take a look at Verilog-to-Routing - an educational/research tool that is open-source. https://github.com/verilog-to-routing/vtr-verilog-to-routing https://github.com/verilog-to-routing/vtr-verilog-to-routing
  - gravypod 7y ago
    That looks like a great resource! Thank you!
- blcArmadillo 7y ago
  I haven't personally taken these so can't comment on quality but there is: 1. https://www.coursera.org/learn/vlsi-cad-logic https://www.coursera.org/learn/vlsi-cad-logic 2. https://www.coursera.org/learn/vlsi-cad-layout https://www.coursera.org/learn/vlsi-cad-layout
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  The GP mixed up hardware compiler and board layout tools. KiCad (funded by CERN) and LibreCAD are pretty good PCB layout and routing tools. Since Autodesk bought Eagle, they're the Open Source "great hopes." For PCB tools, you should just join an existing project since there's several Open Source ones and we need better ones, not more. This is a suitable long-term hobby if you occasionally make boards yourself. Especially welcome if you work on the parts library UI and items. Chisel, etc. are hardware compiler tools, not board layout tools. You should get a job at a chip or HFT company and have them pay you to learn and apply this stuff. The commercial software is shitty since the vendors spend more on keeping their license dongles up-to-date than adding features. Source: worked at a company that designed a 400 million transistor chip. Most of my X-co-workers worked on the A11 and A12.
Cyph0n 7y ago
EDA tools are a different beast... There is a reason why the field is completely monopolized by the big three - Cadence, Synopsys, and Mentor Graphics. And a lot of the tools you mentioned are targeted towards FPGA design rather than full or semi-custom ASIC design. The big three have tools that can handle both.
- paulgerhardt 7y ago
  Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Relative to something like Microsoft Office they’re tiny and we have open competitive solutions there (a product notorious for a billion corner cases). And let’s not forget “EDA software” was single handedly pioneered by one woman and some lisp. Before then, it was hundreds of men taping out circuits on 4x8’ ply with...physical tape who all complained the labor and complexity costs were enormous and nothing could be done. If we really want to point fingers, we could say it’s a monopoly on the supply chain side of manufacturing - costing millions in NRE’s to make a chip - but if you are willing to scrimp on process size you can get it done for $3 per layer per reticle at 500nm scale and $50 per mask.
  - choudanu4 7y ago
    Since you seem to know, what company would one go to for fabricating a 500nm chip these days at that price?
    - JetSpiegel 7y ago
      500nm feature size is positively ancient. Any of the myriad fabless companies won't even care about those dinosaur technologies. I would try the local university with an electronics program.
  - therealcamino 7y ago
    To make things more concrete than "big" or "relatively...tiny", some quick googling puts Cadence's annual R&D spending at a little less than $1B and Synopsys's around $1.2B. Mentor Graphics is part of Siemens, so that'd be harder to figure out.

ur-whale 7y ago

Kicad is an amazing tool. Not easy to get into, kind of like vim in that regard, but when mastered, it's really powerful. With that in place, I wish it had: . Something to import LTSpice files directly into its schematics tool (or even better, go back and forth) . A rough but well integrated auto-router . A better parts library management system (the current one is really bad). But even without those, designing electronics circuits with KiCad is a blast once you've mastered it. And it's free ...

HarryBeadle 7y ago
You can simulate using SPICE in KiCad now (ngspice). KiCad already has an auto-router? But yeah, parts management is a mess...
- DominoTree 7y ago
  KiCad's native autorouter was deprecated a while back (unless someone added it again in a recent point release)
- ur-whale 7y ago
  >You can simulate using SPICE in KiCad now (ngspice). Yes, but LTSPice is so much better than ngspice. I really wish the Linear would OpenSource it, it's a really cool piece of software. KiCad does not really have a very well integrated auto-router. As someone pointed out, the only "integrated" one was deprecated, and all the others I've tried are very clunky (from the pov of being integrated).
nrp 7y ago
Library management is a little messy, but on the other hand it’s great that the master version of it is just a GitHub repository. That makes it really easy to pull down the latest, add new parts as you work on a project, and submit pull requests to share them back.
- baybal2 7y ago
  I remember there was a company trying to make "EDA library" as a service with online API. I wonder if they are still around and if one can use their API from KiCad

amelius 7y ago

How/where are people getting their PCBs manufactured and assembled? Are cheap chinese services reliable? How do you protect your IP when using manufacturing services?

ur-whale 7y ago
If you open-source your "IP" (I'm quoting it, because the very name offends me), the problem magically goes away. But then, that's something culturally almost impossible to even imagine from people who hark from the HW design world.
- lnsru 7y ago
  When you open source your hardware IP, you can buy it from Aliexpress few weeks later. That’s why I’ll never put final design on public github repository. For first prototype it’s ok. Final design brings in a cost of few thousand euros for electromagnetic compatibility measurement and I’ll definitely not give away this one.
  - clarry 7y ago
    > When you open source your hardware IP, you can buy it from Aliexpress few weeks later. Sounds like an easy way to get others to do your work for you for free. Win win. Why go through the hassle of establishing a supply chain. So what's the catch? Why are we still labouring instead of waiting for our products to magically ship themselves through Aliexpress?
HarryBeadle 7y ago
Your IP is in more danger when sending your designs to China for cheap fab, but is safer when going with more expensive local options (PCBTrain, for example). It's all about trust.
rowanG077 7y ago
The first thought you should be having is what are you actually protecting? Is the value of your product in the PCB? Keep in mind that even moderately complex PCBs can be reverse engineered relatively easily.

kyaghmour 7y ago

Most importantly, KiCad needs funding: https://funding.communitybridge.org/projects/kicad https://funding.communitybridge.org/projects/kicad

josteink 7y ago

Nothing bad about KiCad (don’t know it), but the Linux foundation have recently been caught neck deep in what seems like a (needless) identity politics controversy. TLDR: it kicked out white males trying to mostly have a reasonable conversation on Twitter from attending its events, while allowing an openly and viciously racist and sexist black woman to attend the same event, with her asking for “safe spaces” to top the irony. Needless to say, my respect for the Linux foundation has plummeted. They’re clearly off my donation-lists now.