Installation

Install a release build with one command, or build IC Studio from source with the Rust toolchain.

Install a release

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://github.com/geniuskey/ic-studio/releases/latest/download/install.ps1 | iex

macOS (Apple silicon) and Linux (x86_64):

curl -fsSL https://github.com/geniuskey/ic-studio/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

The installer downloads the latest release and installs two programs into one folder: the desktop app ic-studio and the command line tool ics, which is also the MCP server for AI agents (ics mcp).

The installer also:

• registers the MCP server with Claude Code if claude is on the PATH (claude mcp add --scope user ic-studio -- <folder>/ics mcp); otherwise it prints that command and the JSON config for other clients (see MCP server);
• on macOS, removes the download quarantine attribute;
• on macOS / Linux, prints the line to add to your shell profile if ~/.local/bin is not on the PATH. On Windows, open a new terminal to pick up the PATH change.

To update, run the installer again; this works while the app or an agent is running (restart them afterwards). The app’s own updater (Help > Check for Updates…) also replaces ics together with the app.

Options are environment variables:

$env:ICS_VERSION="v0.2.0"; irm https://github.com/geniuskey/ic-studio/releases/latest/download/install.ps1 | iex

curl -fsSL https://github.com/geniuskey/ic-studio/releases/latest/download/install.sh | ICS_UNINSTALL=1 sh

Release builds exist for Windows x86_64, Linux x86_64 and macOS on Apple silicon. On an Intel Mac, build from source.

Manual download. Each release has an archive with both programs, ic-studio-<platform>.zip (Windows) or ic-studio-<platform>.tar.gz (macOS, Linux), where <platform> is windows-x86_64, linux-x86_64 or macos-aarch64. Unpack it into a folder of your choice and keep the two programs together: the updater and Add to Claude Code look for ics next to ic-studio. Put the folder on the PATH to use ics in a terminal.

Build from source

Requirements

• Rust 1.95 or newer from rustup.rs.
• Windows: the MSVC toolchain (x86_64-pc-windows-msvc), which needs the Visual Studio Build Tools with the “Desktop development with C++” workload.
• Linux: the windowing libraries libxkbcommon-dev libwayland-dev libx11-dev libxcursor-dev libxrandr-dev libxi-dev.
• macOS: the Xcode command line tools.
• A GPU driver supported by wgpu (DX12 on Windows, Vulkan on Linux, Metal on macOS).

Build and run

git clone https://github.com/geniuskey/ic-studio
cd ic-studio
cargo run --release                     # the desktop app
cargo run --release -- --demo           # with the bundled demo designs
cargo run --release -- path/to/project  # open a project folder

To build both programs (ic-studio, ics) into target/release/:

cargo build --release --workspace

Launch options

ic-studio [PROJECT_DIR] [--demo] [--cell NAME] [--workspace home|schematic|simulation|layout] [--run]

Example: cargo run --release -- --demo --cell inv_tiles --workspace layout.

Without arguments, the app reopens the most recent project if Reopen last project is checked in Settings (the default), otherwise it shows the welcome page.

ngspice (optional)

IC Studio has its own built-in simulator, so ngspice is not required. To use ngspice as a backend, install it:

• Windows: the official build, which installs to C:\Spice64\bin\
• macOS: brew install ngspice
• Linux: apt install ngspice (or your distribution’s package)

IC Studio looks for /opt/homebrew/bin/ngspice, /usr/local/bin/ngspice, /usr/bin/ngspice and C:\Spice64\bin\ngspice.exe, then for ngspice on the PATH. To use another location, open File > Settings… (Ctrl+,), enter the path in the ngspice field and press Detect. The status bar and the console show whether ngspice was found.

On Windows, ngspice.exe is the GUI build; if detection or batch simulation fails, point the setting at the console binary ngspice_con.exe in the same folder.

Settings

File > Settings… (Ctrl+,, also in the Tools menu, or the gear at the bottom of the activity bar):

Settings and the recent-projects list are stored by the app between sessions.

Example projects with real PDKs

Scripts download open-source designs into examples/ (git-ignored) as ready-to-open projects:

./scripts/fetch-examples.sh             # macOS / Linux (curl, gunzip)
./scripts/fetch-examples.ps1            # Windows PowerShell
#   --caravel / -Caravel  also the full caravel chip (52 MB download, 278 MB unpacked)
#   --force   / -Force    rebuild the projects from the downloaded files

• examples/sky130: SKY130 layer set with the efabless caravel libraries caravel_clocking, housekeeping and chip_io (and caravel).
• examples/gf180: GF180MCU layer set with the gf180mcu_fd_sc_mcu7t5v0 standard cells and the gf180mcu_fd_ip_sram 512 x 8 SRAM macro.

Open them with File > Open Project… or ic-studio examples/sky130.