retroSoC/physical/pdk/README.md

Managed Process Design Kits

This directory is the integration root for process design kits, technology libraries, SRAM/PLL collateral, and related setup scripts. Most child trees are managed vendor or upstream dependencies rather than ordinary project source.

Use the dependency lock and PDK setup targets to acquire or update managed inputs. Do not reformat, patch, or delete vendor content as part of unrelated work. PDK changes require the affected synthesis, timing, physical-design, or FPGA validation flow and the ownership review defined by ../../.github/CODEOWNERS.

The supported CI PDKs are IHP130, GF180, ICS55, and SKY130. ICS55 obtains its locked H7CR standard-cell Liberty archive through dependencies/dependencies.lock.json and materializes normalized TT and SS views below .cache/retrosoc/pdk/ics55/; its IO Liberty is part of the locked source checkout. PDK setup also generates a cached copy of the H7CR functional standard-cell model that corrects the seven upstream MUXI2 self-feedback models without modifying the vendor checkout. GF180 assembles its locked gf180mcu_fd_sc_mcu7t5v0 Liberty fragments and the two SoC-used IO cells (in_c and bi_t) at both its TT and core-STA slow corners. SKY130 generates its sky130_fd_sc_hd Liberty model from locked upstream JSON files at TT and slow corners. Derived Liberty files are stored below .cache/retrosoc/pdk/ and are not committed. SKY130 setup initializes only the locked HD library submodule; the remaining upstream libraries are outside the SoC integration boundary.

The IHP130 dependency is also the technology source for the independent physical/librelane/ core-hardening and full-chip pad-ring flows. The locked checkout includes the upstream libs.tech/librelane standard-cell, pad, extraction, DRC, LVS, filler, bondpad, and seal-ring configuration; LibreLane consumes it directly in manual-PDK mode. The other three open PDKs do not yet have project-owned LibreLane adapters.

All four PDK profiles run slow-corner OpenSTA core timing in CI. The analysis uses the PDK standard-cell Liberty plus the linked IO-cell model required to read the synthesized top-level wrapper. It excludes board, pad-ring, extraction, and PLL timing and is therefore not a physical signoff result.

The GF180, ICS55, and SKY130 CI flows synth the digital core and run functional standard-cell netlist simulation. Their generic SoC wrappers explicitly use the locked PDK GPIO and clock cells for RTL and netlist simulation: GF180 uses gf180mcu_fd_io__in_c/gf180mcu_fd_io__bi_t and MCU7T5V0 clock cells, while SKY130 uses sky130_fd_io__top_gpiov2 and HD clock cells. This integration does not add supply, corner, filler, placement, or physical verification collateral; physical pad-ring integration remains a technology-specific signoff task. GF180/SKY130 PLL configurations are rejected because no qualified crystal-pad implementation is selected. SKY130 maps the generic Schmitt-control input to its threshold-select control and therefore does not provide hysteresis. ICS55 uses its cached corrected standard-cell functional model with timing blocks disabled and a pin-compatible local PBMUX/PWE model only for Verilator, because the upstream IO model uses unsupported gate strengths and transmission primitives. Verilator uses a pin-compatible local functional model for the GF180 IO cells because the upstream model contains unsupported rnmos primitives. SKY130 uses the same approach because its upstream IO model uses unsupported switch primitives and drive strengths. Synthesis still preserves the original PDK cell instances. GF180 netlist simulation also substitutes pin-compatible sequential-cell models because the upstream functional models propagate an unconnected synthesized notifier as an unknown value.