ICSiCal

ICSiCal is a software framework designed to support calendar-based computation within electronic design automation workflows, focusing on the scheduling of design, verification, and manufacturing tasks that have tight timing constraints. It provides a structured approach to model, simulate, and optimize sequences of activities across different resources, such as compute clusters and fabrication lines, using time-aware representations.

ICSiCal is an acronym for Integrated Calendar for Scheduling and Calibration. The project aims to integrate calendar logic with constraint-based scheduling to help engineers reason about timing, availability, and dependencies in complex IC pipelines.

The framework features a modular core scheduling engine, a constraint propagation layer, support for ISO 8601 time formats, and pluggable backends for data storage and computation. It includes a lightweight task graph model, scenario analysis capabilities, and interfaces with common EDA tools via APIs.

Originating from a collaboration among universities and industry partners in the early 2010s, ICSiCal has been developed as an open-source project with regular releases and community contributions. It is used primarily in academic research on scheduling algorithms for semiconductor fabrication and design workflows, as well as in prototype workflows at partner companies.

Future work focuses on scalability improvements, tighter integration with cloud-based compute platforms, and enhanced interoperability with established EDA toolchains. References to ICSiCal documentation and repositories provide example use cases and implementation details.