GDS2
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 GDS2 files.
We can use other programs or even software libraries to generate valid GDS2 files. Here I’ve used gdspy to convert the Hackaday logo into GDS2.
You can check the very simple program out here
The Skywater PDK defines all the layers that we can use in the GDS2 files.
Course feedback
If you've got any interest in how the sausage is made you should get on the course and you should dig in and find out more. I mean this was the work of secret witches and wizards in mysterious cloaks casting strange incantations over a cauldron! This was all secret stuff and I love that this project is trying to do to silicon design what the open source community has been trying to do with software for the last 30 years. This feels like the next logical step and I think we'll look back and say well of course you can make your own chips that's just a thing and it will just be obvious and commonplace and I look forward to that.