Softworks

Software and documentation view types in the Cadence Virtuoso IC design environment.

Overview

Softworks defines cell view types for documentation and software views in the Cadence Virtuoso integrated circuit design environment. It supports automated design of circuit IP and makes it accessible to the average designer.

It is an open-source library written in SKILL++ and built on the Virtue SKILL and Python design automation framework.

The software views make automated design more accessible to both the average IC design engineer and those with software experience. It allows the tool interface to be simplified to a simple template run script where the inputs are defined in a dictionary and passed to an API function.

The documentation views support the development of IP libraries by attaching the documentation directly to the cells. This makes it easier to communicate the performance of the cell and keep track of it.

Custom Cell Views

View Type	Extensions	Editors	Description
pdf	*.pdf	xpdf	A pdf Document
ppt	*.pptx	open office	A power point presentation
Excel	*.xlsx *.xlsm	open office	A spreadsheet
html	*.html	firefox	A web page
module	*.py *.pyc	VS Code, gedit	A Python module
notebook	*.ipynb	VS Code, gedit	A Python Jupyter notebook
markdown	*.md	VS Code, gedit	A markdown document. VS code enables editing and rendering
yaml	*.yml	VS Code, gedit	A yaml data file
skill	*.il	Skill IDE, gedit	A SKILL code file
skillpp	*.ils	Skill IDE, gedit	A SKILL++ code file

Creating a New View

A new blank document view can be created by using the standard "File -> New -> Cell View..." selection. Then some view types will create a new cellview directly based on a template file while the documentation views will open a GUI. This GUI has the option to either create the new cell view from a template or import an existing file to the cell view.

License

Softworks is MIT licensed, see the LICENSE file for more details.

Installation

1. Make sure Virtuoso IC6.1.8 (though it may work with other IC6 versions) is installed

2. Make sure the following programs are installed to support editing the associated views:

   • Visual Studio Code / vscode which code
   • Libre office (pptx, xlsx) which libre
   • xpdf (PDF) which xpdf
   • firefox (HTML) which firefox

3. Install by following Virtue framework installation instructions.

4. Install Softworks using the same method as Virtue. If skyworks wasn't a part of your initial environment definition file when creating the environment, then you can install them after the fact:

Conda:

conda activate virtuoso  # or your environment's name
conda install softworks

Pip:

pip install softworks