Towards industrial-grade designs with open-source EDA: The DI-FLOWSPACE and DI-SIGN-HEP Approach
- Speaker(s): Norbert Herfurth
- email: herfurth@ihp-microelectronics.com
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File:SIGN-HEP^0FLOWSPACE@FSiC2025.pdf
Abstract
The projects DI-FLOWSPACE and DI-SIGN-HEP aim to demonstrate that Open Source EDA tools can be used to design circuits suitable for industrial products, while systematically identifying the remaining gaps towards this goal. DI-FLOWSPACE focuses on analog and mixed-signal design flows and targets space applications by developing an open radiation-hardened (RadHard) Process Design Kit (PDK) based on the IHP-Open130-G2 platform. Within the project, an industrial partner is reimplementing a proprietary analog beamformer with simple digital control entirely using Open Source tools, validating the flow for radiation-tolerant electronics. DI-SIGN-HEP focuses on secure digital design and aims to create a fully open implementation of the Caliptra hardware security module (HSM) standard. The project develops freely available security components such as one-time programmable memories (OTP), entropy sources, and physically unclonable functions (PUFs), thereby demonstrating that Open Source EDA can also support product-grade secure digital circuits. Both projects highlight opportunities and challenges for the broader industrial adoption of open design methodologies and contribute to strengthening Europe’s microelectronics ecosystem.