| # Welcome to OpenROAD's documentation! |
|
|
| The OpenROAD ("Foundations and Realization of Open, Accessible Design") |
| project was launched in June 2018 within the DARPA IDEA program. OpenROAD |
| aims to bring down the barriers of cost, expertise and unpredictability that |
| currently block designers' access to hardware implementation in advanced |
| technologies. The project team (Qualcomm, Arm and multiple universities and |
| partners, led by UC San Diego) is developing a fully autonomous, open-source |
| tool chain for digital SoC layout generation, focusing on |
| the RTL-to-GDSII phase of system-on-chip design. Thus, |
| OpenROAD holistically attacks the multiple facets of today's design cost |
| crisis: engineering resources, design tool licenses, project schedule, |
| and risk. |
|
|
| The IDEA program targets no-human-in-loop (NHIL) design, with 24-hour |
| turnaround time and zero loss of power-performance-area (PPA) design quality. |
|
|
| The NHIL target requires tools to adapt and auto-tune successfully to flow |
| completion, without (or, with minimal) human intervention. Machine |
| intelligence augments human expertise through efficient modeling and |
| prediction of flow and optimization outcomes throughout the synthesis, placement |
| and routing process. This is complemented by development of metrics |
| and machine learning infrastructure. |
|
|
| The 24-hour runtime target implies that problems must be strategically |
| decomposed throughout the design process, with clustered and partitioned |
| subproblems being solved and recomposed through intelligent distribution |
| and management of computational resources. This ensures that the NHIL design |
| optimization is performed within its available `[threads * hours]` "box" of |
| resources. Decomposition that enables parallel and distributed search over |
| cloud resources incurs a quality-of-results loss, but this is subsequently |
| recovered through improved flow predictability and enhanced optimization. |
|
|
| For a technical description of the OpenROAD flow, please refer to our DAC-2019 paper: |
| [Toward an Open-Source Digital Flow: First Learnings from the OpenROAD Project](https://vlsicad.ucsd.edu/Publications/Conferences/371/c371.pdf). |
| The paper is also available from [ACM Digital Library](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3316781.3326334). |
| Other publications and presentations are |
| linked [here](https://theopenroadproject.org/publications/). |
|
|
| ## Documentation |
|
|
| The OpenROAD Project has two releases: |
|
|
| - Application ([github](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD)) ([docs](main/README.md)): The application is a standalone binary for digital place and route that can be used by any other RTL-GDSII flow controller. |
| - Flow ([github](https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD-flow-scripts)) ([docs](https://openroad-flow-scripts.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)): This is the native OpenROAD flow that consists of a set of integrated scripts for an autonomous RTL-GDSII flow using OpenROAD and other open-source tools. |
|
|
| ## Code of conduct |
|
|
| Please read our code of conduct [here](main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md). |
|
|
| ## How to contribute |
|
|
| If you are willing to **contribute**, see the |
| [Getting Involved](contrib/GettingInvolved.md) section. |
|
|
| If you are a **developer** with EDA background, learn more about how you |
| can use OpenROAD as the infrastructure for your tools in the |
| [Developer Guide](contrib/DeveloperGuide.md) section. |
|
|
| OpenROAD uses Git for version control and contributions. |
| Get familiarised with a quickstart tutorial to contribution [here](contrib/GitGuide.md). |
|
|
| ## How to get in touch |
|
|
| We maintain the following channels for communication: |
|
|
| - Project homepage and news: <https://theopenroadproject.org> |
| - Twitter: <https://twitter.com/OpenROAD_EDA> |
| - Issues and bugs: |
| - OpenROAD: <https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/issues> |
| - Discussions: |
| - OpenROAD: <https://github.com/The-OpenROAD-Project/OpenROAD/discussions> |
| - Inquiries: openroad@ucsd.edu |
|
|
| See also our [FAQs](user/FAQS.md). |
|
|
| ## Site Map |
|
|
| ```{tableofcontents} |
| ``` |
|
|
