Libraries

Efficient hardware and software development demands a robust ecosystem of reusable high quality components. In SiliconCompiler, you can add new IP to your design by creating a Library object which can be passed into the use() function. The Library class contains its own Schema dictionary, which can describe a macro block or standard cell library.

The general flow to create and import a library is to instantiate a Library object, set up any required sources (in the case of a soft library), or models and outputs (in case of a hardened library), and then import it into a parent design Chip object. To enable simple ‘target’ based access, it is recommended that fundamental physical foundry sponsored IP (stdcells, GPIO, memory macros) are set up as part of reusable library modules. To select which standard cell libraries to use during compilation, add their names to the ['asic', 'logiclib'] parameter, to select macro libraries, add their names to the ['asic', 'macrolib'] parameter, and to select soft-IP libraries, add their names to the ['option', 'library'] parameter.

Functions

The table below shows the function interfaces for setting up Library objects.

Function	Description	Args	Returns	Used by	Required
setup()	Library setup function	optional keyword arguments	Library or list of Library	use()	yes
make_docs()	Doc generator	Chip	Library	sphinx	no

setup()

A library can be setup as either a foundational IP library, such as those for foundry sponsored IP, or a soft library, which can be used to include external IP in your design.

Foundational IP

Here is an example of setting up a Library object with a hard IP macro.

from siliconcompiler import Library

lib = Library('mymacro', package='mypackage')
lib.register_source('mypackage', path='git+https://github.com/myproject/mypackage', ref='v1.0')
lib.add('output', '10M', 'lef', 'mymacro.lef')
lib.add('output', '10M', 'gds', 'mymacro.gds')

return lib

This example creates a library named mymacro which contains two files a lef and gds. These files are included in the mypackage, which was defined using register_source(). In this case it is defined as a reference to a github repository, for IPs with liberty files and GDSs, it is recommended that the distribution be via tagged releases.

Soft IP

Here is an example of setting up a Library object with a HDL IP.

from siliconcompiler import Library
from hdlpackage import subcompnent

lib = Library('mymacro', package='mypackage', auto_enable=True)
lib.register_source('mypackage', path='python://hdlpackage')
lib.input('mymacro.v')
lib.input('mymacro_submodule.v')
lib.add('option', 'idir', 'include')

lib.use(subcompnent)

return lib

This example creates a library named mymacro which contains two source files and a include directory. These files are included in the mypackage, which was defined using register_source(). In this case, the files are bundled with the python package as HDL tends to be fairly small and this can be easily distributed via pypi.org. The library also contains a reference to a subcompnent which is needed to compile this object. Additionally, the auto_enable is set to True which ensures that when this library is brought in with use() it is automatically added to the ['option', 'library'].

make_docs(chip)

The make_docs() function is used by the projects auto-doc generation. This function is only needed if the library requires additional inputs to be setup correctly. The function should include a call to the setup function to populate the schema with all settings as shown below. The input to this function chip is a chip object created by the auto-doc generator.

def make_docs(chip):
  return setup()