area-plot-post-syn

This repository contains a python script allowing to plot in treemap format and analyze the post-synthesis area report of your RTL design. By providing an interactive interface through plotly library, the tool enables hierarchical designs exploration. Furthermore, it represents a simple way to visualize complex designs, observing the relative dimensions of the different components and their impact on the overall design.

Usage as a standalone script

Install requirements

All packages to run the tool are grouped in the requirements.txt and environment.yml file.

• Pip: you can install the required dependencies into an existing Python environment using Pip:

  python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

• Conda: you can create a new conda environment with:

  conda env create -f environment.yml

Alternatively, you can use the equivalent make targets:

make pip # install dependencies using pip
make conda # create a new conda environment with the dependencies

Generate the area chart

To plot the layout of a design, the only requirement is a post-synthesis area report. Launch the area generation from this level of the repo through the command:

python3 area_plot.py --filename report_file.rpt

Further options are available to tweak the interactive plot, such as plotting only modules whose area contribution is higher than a certain percentage or setting the maximum hierarchical level up to which visualize the block scheme.

For all available options try:

python3 area_plot.py --help

The tool also supports interactive sunburst visualization using plotly

The tool has only been tested using Synopsys DC® output files

Install as Python module

The tool can also be installed as area-plot, provided that its dependencies are compatible with the existing environment. This can be achieved with:

make install

Once installed, the tool can be used as the standalone script, e.g.:

area-plot --help