Reflections on the First European Open Source PDK by IHP - Experiences After One Year and Future Activities

The IHP's open source Process Design Kit (PDK) was released to the public in February 2023, and since then significant progress has been made in its development. By making it available to a broader community, developers, researchers, and engineers can contribute their expertise, ideas, and improvements, accelerating innovation and potentially leading to breakthroughs in semiconductor technology. In this paper, we aim to share details about the current version of the Design Kit, including its features, capabilities, and the issues we encountered during the development process. We also present our collaborative development model involving multiple institutions and individuals working under the open source paradigm. This approach is still a novelty in microelectronic hardware development. In addition, we present our vision and roadmap for the PDK to inform the community and encourage further collaboration. Our goal is to explore the open source development model and promote its popularity within the microelectronics community.