Quick Start

This repo includes a small Verilog design that computes a greatest common divisor function. The datapath includes two state registers and the required muxing and arithmetic units to iteratively implement Euclid’s algorithm. You can use this design to demo the default ASIC flow that ships with mflowgen, which should work for most designs.

Greatest Common Divisor Circuit (GcdUnit)

This section steps through how to clone the repo and push this design through synthesis, place, and route with the included open-source 45nm ASIC design kit using either the open-source tools (e.g., Yosys) or the commercial tools (i.e., Synopsys, Cadence, Mentor).

You may want to work in a virtual environment:

% python3 -m venv venv
% source venv/bin/activate

First, clone the repo:

% git clone https://github.com/mflowgen/mflowgen
% cd mflowgen
% TOP=${PWD}

Install mflowgen with pip as an editable repo:

% pip install -e .

The greatest common divisor design has three demo graphs in $TOP/designs/GcdUnit:

1. construct-open.py – Open-source toolflow based on Yosys, graywolf, qrouter, and RePlAcE
2. construct-commercial.py – Commercial toolflow based on Synopsys, Cadence, and Mentor tools
3. construct-commercial-full.py – Commercial toolflow with more steps expanded for greater observability

All three flows use the 45nm ASIC design kit based on FreePDK45 and the NanGate Open Cell Library.

Note

To switch between the different graphs, open $TOP/designs/GcdUnit/.mflowgen.yml and specify one of the three choices. The remainder of this quickstart will assume you have modified this file and chosen the open-source toolflow.

Refer to Greatest Common Divisor Pipe Cleaner for a similar quick start that uses commercial tools (e.g., Synopsys, Cadence, Mentor) instead of open-source tools.

% cd $TOP
% mkdir build && cd build
% mflowgen run --design ../designs/GcdUnit

You can show information about the currently configured flow:

% make info      # <-- shows which design is being targeted
% make list      # <-- shows most things you can do
% make status    # <-- prints the build status of each step
% make graph     # <-- dumps a graphviz PDF of the configured flow

Now run synthesis and check the outputs of the sandbox to inspect the area report. Note: For the commercial flow, check make list for the build target name.

% make open-yosys-synthesis
% cat *-open-yosys-synthesis/outputs/synth.stats.txt

You can also run steps using the number from make list:

% make list      # <-- 3 : open-yosys-synthesis
% make 3

The yosys area report will look something like this:

=== GcdUnit ===

   Number of wires:                406
   Number of wire bits:           1011
   Number of public wires:         406
   Number of public wire bits:    1011
   Number of memories:               0
   Number of memory bits:            0
   Number of processes:              0
   Number of cells:                941
     AOI211_X1                       3
     AOI21_X1                       34
     AOI22_X1                       30
     BUF_X1                        626
     CLKBUF_X1                       5
     DFF_X1                         34
     INV_X1                         48
     NAND2_X1                       42
     NAND3_X1                        3
     NOR2_X1                        34
     NOR3_X1                         3
     NOR4_X1                         4
     OAI211_X1                       1
     OAI21_X1                       40
     OAI221_X1                       1
     OAI22_X1                        2
     OR2_X1                          1
     XNOR2_X1                       18
     XOR2_X1                        12

   Chip area for this module: 932.330000

Report runtimes to check how long each step has taken:

% make runtimes

Then run place-and-route (requires graywolf and qrouter):

% make open-graywolf-place
% make open-qrouter-route