Tapeout

Delivering a block means two things: the files themselves, and enough information to rebuild them a year later. Both come out of make deliver.

Prerequisites

A ../tapeout directory, normally a submodule of the tapeout repository. If it is not there, make preflight stops immediately, which is deliberate: finding out after the multi-minute DRC and LVS runs is a waste of an afternoon.

Pin the dependencies first

make preflight
make preflight DEPS_OPT=--fail-on-dirty

py/deps2tapeout.py walks the tech symlink and every symlink under design/, resolves each to its git repository, and writes ../tapeout/ip/config.yaml as a cicconf-style lock file: same name: {remote, revision} shape, but revision is the exact commit SHA rather than the branch cicconf tracks.

That distinction is the whole point. main will have moved by the time anyone asks what was taped out; a SHA will not. cicconf clone on that lock reconstructs the exact environment that produced the GDS.

Repositories with uncommitted changes are listed as a warning, because a pinned SHA does not capture a dirty tree. Dirty trees are normal while iterating, which is why it is only a warning by default. For a delivery you actually intend to be reproducible, use --fail-on-dirty and commit everything first.

Deliver

make deliver

runs preflight cdl gds lvs drc ant, then lpe, then copies into ../tapeout/:

Destination	What
gds/<CELL>.gds	The layout, plus a <date>_<CELL>.gds copy
lef/<CELL>.lef	Pins and outline only, via deliver.tcl
spi/	The schematic netlist and the extracted one
reports/	The DRC, LVS and antenna logs
docs/info.md, docs/info.html	The documentation
ip/config.yaml	The dependency lock

Note the order: the checks run before anything is copied, so a failing block cannot be delivered by accident.

The LEF is written -pinonly: it says where a top level router may connect, without also describing the whole cell.

The documentation

py/readme2tapeout.py converts the IP README.md into a Tiny Tapeout docs/info.md. The docs folder is flat, so every locally resolvable image is copied next to info.md with its path flattened and the markdown reference rewritten. CI badges are stripped and replaced with links to the repository and its documentation site, derived from the git remote. PNGs over the Tiny Tapeout limits are re-encoded and scaled down until they fit.

Then pandoc renders a self contained info.html.

So: whatever is in the IP README is what gets submitted. Run make summary in the simulation directories first, so the measured results are in it.

Precheck

make precheck

make/tt_precheck.sh runs the same checks the TinyTapeout/tt-gds-action/precheck action runs in CI: magic DRC, KLayout DRC, forbidden layers, pin labels, the pin and boundary checks, power and analog pin checks, and verilog syntax.

It needs a tt-support-tools checkout, and tells you what to clone if it is missing:

git clone https://github.com/TinyTapeout/tt-support-tools ~/github/tt-support-tools

The venv is created on first run. Everything else is auto-detected, including klayout inside a macOS app bundle. Override with TT_TOOLS, PDK_ROOT, EDA_BIN, KLAYOUT, PYTHON or TT_TECH.

A sensible order

cd work
make readonly            # freeze the design
make deliver             # checks, then copy
make precheck            # what CI will run
cd ../../tapeout && git add . && git commit

Then commit the IP too, so the SHA in the lock file exists on a remote.