Open-source silicon and EDA workshop 2024

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The chip design ecosystem in Europe is challenged by expensive development tools, legal constraints, lock-in threats and dependency on external supply chains.

Open-source Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools and open-source silicon chips are emerging as possible solutions to these problems. It is increasingly recognised that open-source development offers not only faster and cheaper development but also better products. The open-source model moreover resonates well with the core aims of the European Chips Act of reinforcing the Union’s semiconductor ecosystem by reducing dependencies, enhancing digital sovereignty, stimulating investment, increasing design capacity and the resilience of the Union’s semiconductor supply chain.

Even though some IP building blocks, such as those based on the RISC-V open instruction set, are already witnessing overwhelming success and industrial adoption, the open-source EDA and chip ecosystems are still in their infancy. Their development is further hindered by the high costs of manufacturing silicon chips and by the complexity of the ecosystem which involves heterogeneous participants (from designers to EDA developers, to foundries).

Upcoming event: Open-source silicon and EDA F2F workshop

Location: Paris, Sorbonne university, 4 Place Jussieu
Date: 2024.06.18 (Before FSiC2024 conference, https://wiki.f-si.org/index.php/FSiC2024)
Registration for the event and for the working groups (deadline for event registration is the 11th of June):
https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/88275dc0-9321-bdeb-3d93-83ec342b6353

The Go-IT consortium would like to invite all stakeholders to a workshop in Paris, Sorbonne University titled ‘Open-source silicon and EDA F2F workshop’ on Tuesday, 18th of June with the following agenda:

Agenda
9:00 - 10:00 Welcome, coffee
10:00 - 10:15 Introduction
10:15 - 11:30 Session 1: How to involve Industry in the Open-Source Ecosystem: Best practices
11:30 - 12:15 Coffee break
12:15 - 13:30 Session 2: Technical challenges
13:30 - 14:30 Lunch
14:30 - 15:45 Session 3: Building self-sustainable ecosystem
15:45 - 16:30 Coffee break
16:30 - 17:45 Session 4: Financial support
17:45 - 18:15 Final remarks and conclusions

Etherpads to use during discussion for the four sessions:

  1. https://pad.goit-project.eu/p/s1
  2. https://pad.goit-project.eu/p/s2
  3. https://pad.goit-project.eu/p/s3
  4. https://pad.goit-project.eu/p/s4


Some thought-provoking considerations for the breakout sessions:

Session 1: How to involve Industry in the Open-Source Ecosystem: Best practices
  • Needs:
    • Educated, highly skilled staff
    • Proven EDA
    • Proprietary vs Open-source, what is missing?
  • Potential
    • Cost reduction, e.g. licensing costs, reduced bureaucracy, reusability
    • Increasing quality of open-source silicon IP, PDKs
    • Focus on innovation (e.g. through reusability, stop reinventing the wheel)
    • Potential for reducing time-to-market
    • The relevance of the security aspect
  • Strategy
    • Should Europe consider free shuttle runs? (like Google)
    • How to transition from proprietary to open-source EDA tools?
Session 2: Technical challenges
  • Designer’s perspective
  • EDA tool developer perspective
  • PDK/Foundry perspective
  • Interfacing/standardization
Session 3: Building self-sustainable ecosystem
  • Benefits and drawbacks:
    • Advantages gained by different stakeholders?
      • Universities: costs, access, education
      • Large enterprises: costs, lock-in
      • Startups: costs, time-to-market/innovation
    • Costs for participation in the ecosystem
  • Mechanisms/Actions
    • How to kick-start an ecosystem?
    • How to securing development, e.g. for 20 years?
    • What are the incentives for industry to participate in open-development?
    • Platform for communication, stackoverflow.com for VLSI?
    • Missing support/maintenance companies for EDA (e.g., RedHat)
    • How politics could influence the ecosystem? (e.g., open-source maintained by competence centres)
    • High-quality silicon-proven IP
    • How to address the skill shortage?
    • What should be the role of open-source in education?
    • How education should be changed? (e.g., culture, teach open-source EDA)
    • How standardization could facilitate sustainable ecosystem?
Session 4: Financial support
  • How to support ecosystem as a whole?
    • centrally managed funding
    • foundations
    • events
    • tools
    • contests
  • How to work with interests of different stakeholders?
  • How to facilitate changes in education system? (e.g., funded tapeouts for students)
  • Inclusion of industry, hobbyists, SMEs, LEs? (e.g., support for pilot runs)

Previous events

2024.05.14: Introduction to the open-source EDA ecosystem

Location: Online (watch the video recordings)
Date: 2024.05.14

The Go-IT consortium invited all stakeholders to a webinar titled ‘Introduction to the open-source EDA ecosystem’ on Tuesday 14th May 10:00 – 12:00 CEST with the following agenda (download slides):

  • Open-source hardware in the European Chips Act (10 min)
    Matthew Xuereb, European Commission (download slides)
  • Free and open-source semiconductor ecosystem (10 min)
    Luca Alloatti, Free Silicon Foundation (I) ETS (download slides)
  • Open-source EDA software and semiconductor design (15 min)
    Jean-Paul Chaput, Sorbonne University, Coriolis Foundation (download slides)
  • Open PDK with Open EDA Tools - Challenges and Future needs (10 min)
    Rene Scholz, Leibniz Institute for High Performance Microelectronics (IHP Microelectronics) (download slides)
  • European roadmap on the advancement of open-source EDA tools, next steps (10 min)
    Rihards Novickis, Latvian Institute of Electronics and Computer Science (download slides)
  • Q&A session / Feedback (up to 1 hour)

The discussion will be followed by an in-presence workshop on June 18 in Paris and by multiple working groups (see program below).

To discuss these topics comprehensively, the participation of the following entities is encouraged:

  • Academics and Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs) institutes
  • European foundries or foundries located in the EU
  • European semiconductor manufacturers and semiconductor technology companies
  • Any other European companies which develop in-house silicon chips (including design houses), e.g. in the transportation, communication, and security sectors

We thank all the people (about 200-250) who joined the video-conference on May 14. The video recordings are available at this link.

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