Practice

Games

Five drills on the knowledge the problems assume. Every question is built from a run that really happened, so the logs, the numbers and the maps are the tools' own output rather than something written for the exercise.

911questions
38maps from real runs
41tool logs
Want to add a game, or a drill that is missing? Send the idea, or the question itself. It goes in a queue and becomes a card once its answer can be reviewed.
Suggest a drill
trains recall

Command flash cards

A card asks for one thing: what a command does, which command does it, what a line of a report is telling you, what is wrong with the line, what is missing from it, or what order the steps go in. Cards you miss return sooner and cards you know return later, on a spaced-repetition schedule.

Example: set_clock_uncertainty -setup 0.15 [get_clocks clk]

767 cards in 10 decks play
trains diagnosis

Log forensics

The tail of a tool log is shown, ending in an error or a suspicious warning; pick the root cause or the correct next action.

Example: a placement run that stops at a site mismatch

41 cases in 9 stages play
trains estimation

Call the number

A design summary is shown (cell count, core size, clock target); say whether a quality metric lands over or under a stated value.

Example: is WNS (Worst Negative Slack) above zero?

41 summaries in 5 families play
trains judgement

Your move

A design is in a particular state and something has to change; pick the change you would make, then see what each option actually did, because every one of them was run.

Example: the block misses 0.40 nanoseconds: give it area, or give it back the interface budget?

20 situations in 7 kinds play
trains perception

Read the die

A layout or heat-map image is shown; name the problem it contains.

Example: a congestion hotspot, a clock-tree blowup, a density cliff

42 maps in 6 families play

Flagged for review Every drill has a flag button under the card. A flag opens a GitHub issue, and the open issues are the review queue.