Teaching Integrated Circuit Design with Open Source Electronic Design Automation Tools and Open Process Design Kits

P. Mierzwiński, B. Dec (Warsaw Univ. of Techn., Poland)

This extended abstract presents a course on integrated circuit design with open-source electronic design automation tools and Open Process Design Kits. It connects device, digital and analog circuit, and physical-design knowledge in a transparent flow reproducible beyond a closed laboratory. Lectures, guided laboratories and repository exercises cover requirements, hardware description, simulation, synthesis, physical design, verification and basic full-custom work. The first implementation used a controlled Linux environment, a Verilog-Verilator-Yosys-LibreLane digital flow and selected analog exercises with Open PDK resources. Results indicate that open tools complement commercial EDA by supporting independent practice, exposing intermediate files and reports, and making debugging visible. Limitations include analog-tool configuration complexity and the need for prepared images, diagnostic scripts and reference projects. The work concludes that open flows can strengthen practical microelectronics education when introduced as reproducible, carefully scoped laboratories.