From February 23rd to 27th of 2026, Gatis Šūpols, research assistant at the Institute of Electronics and Computer Science, and Sergejs Umnovs, electronics engineer, attended Analog Design with IHP SG13G2 Open-Source PDK training course with the goal of enhancing knowledge and skills in integrated circuit design with open-source software and IHP SG13G2 PDK.
The training course consisted of four modules focused on a particular circuit in order to demonstrate the contents, possibilities, design rules and limitations of the IHP SG13G2 PDK. The circuits demonstrated were:
- Logic elements;
- Operational Transconductance Amplifier;
- 50 GHz Class A Power Amplifier;
- 8 bit SAR ADC.
During the course, EDI employees were introduced to integrated circuit design flow that utilizes open-source circuit design tools with each step being done with separate applications:
- Schematic drawing – Xschem, QUCS-S;
- Circuit simulation – NGSPICE, Xyce;
- Integrated circuit layout – Klayout;
- Parasitic parameter extraction – magic;
- RF integrated circuit EM simulation – openEMS, Palace.
In addition, the course taught advanced circuit simulation techniques, such as HDL design and analog component cosimulation, Monte-Carlo analysis, high-frequency harmonic balance analysis and S-parameter simulation.
The training course was concluded with a presentation about open-source integrated circuit design software development tendencies and integrated circuit ordering and tape-out for IHP SD13G2 PDK using MPW approach.