PyCell studio from Synopsis

Comments

• Matthias

  January 2017 edited November -1

  Hi Lukas,

  the problem with these frameworks is their license model. They - and specifically OpenAccess - not not compatible with GPL. That's the issue and unless they release the license restrictions their frameworks cannot be supported by a GPL'd project.

  Vice versa, it may be possible to provide an API that maps KLayout's API to that of PyCell, but as OpenAccess is involved I assume that Si2 membership is required to obtain the specification. I don't have Si2 and I'm not willing to pay for it.

  But if anybody wants to start a true open source initiative in the EDA domain: I'd be willing to join.

  Matthias
• lukasc

  December 2017 edited November -1

  Thanks Matthias.

  I agree with your concerns and the need for a true open source initiative. I think what you are doing is outstanding. It may very well be considered as a starting point for standard, though the challenge is that all the companies have their own implementation and it would be a challenge to convince everyone to switch. A few of us, including some companies, have an interest in PDA (photonic design automation) standardization, including layouts, representation of curves (not as polygons but real curves), simulations and compact model libraries, etc.

  Now that you have Packages, is it possible for someone to write a package that has different licensing? e.g., there could be an OA plug-in that isn't distributed by klayout.de, but rather a separate GitHub project. It would be a massive undertaking. In many cases, it's probably easier to just re-write the python code for the different EDA tools.