GDSII/GDS2 is a binary file format that represents the layers needed to produce an ASIC.

In the OpenLane flow, Magic is used to ‘stream’ the final GDSII files.

All shapes are assigned to a given GDSII layer, and each layer ends up being used to create a mask, although often this may involve the combination of one or more GDSII layers to form one mask, and the shapes are often grown, or shrunk, or merged and thus what ends up on the mask may not be the same as what was drawn by the designer. Each mask is then used in a photolithographic step to produce the chip.

We can use other programs or even software libraries to generate valid GDSII files. Here I’ve used gdspy to convert the Hackaday logo into GDSII.

You can check the very simple program out here

The Skywater PDK defines all the layers that we can use in the GDSII files.

Course feedback

It was such a great opportunity to do something on my own and see a piece of silicon where there is my invention or my part doing things. It was in the back of my mind for a long time, I think it was my dream to put something into silicon but it was so expensive until this opportunity arrived.

Pawel Sitarz (digital course)