SPICE is a general-purpose, open-source analog electronic circuit simulator. It stands for Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis. ngspice is a successor, and is easily installable on Linux. It’s the simulator I’ve used to explore the Skywater 130 PDK.

Here’s an example spice simulation file that I used to simulate the inverter I drew.

And here’s a nice demo of me showing how a flip-flop works by simulating a Sky130 D type flip flop with SPICE.

Course feedback

I can highly recommend the Zero to ASIC course, especially to other students. Thanks to the grant program I was able to get a Silicon Level ticket and actually fabricate my own chip. It was a great opportunity to take something I learned at university in my case, Huffman coding and implement it in real silicon. The course made the whole process understandable and achievable.

Marvin B (digital course)