diff --git a/pkgs/development/compilers/yosys/default.nix b/pkgs/development/compilers/yosys/default.nix
index 4bd5640c854c..532fc04a447f 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/compilers/yosys/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/compilers/yosys/default.nix
@@ -1,19 +1,21 @@
 { stdenv, fetchFromGitHub
-, pkgconfig, tcl, readline, libffi, python3, bison, flex
+, pkgconfig, bison, flex
+, tcl, readline, libffi, python3
+, protobuf
 }:
 
 with builtins;
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   name = "yosys-${version}";
-  version = "2018.05.03";
+  version = "2018.08.08";
 
   srcs = [
     (fetchFromGitHub {
       owner  = "yosyshq";
       repo   = "yosys";
-      rev    = "a572b495387743a58111e7264917a497faa17ebf";
-      sha256 = "0q4xh4sy3n83c8il8lygzv0i6ca4qw36i2k6qz6giw0wd2pkibkb";
+      rev    = "93efbd5d158e374a0abe2afb06484ccc14aa2c88";
+      sha256 = "13y7rzpykihal789hyibg629gwj5bh1s0782y5xxj6jlg0bc9ly8";
       name   = "yosys";
     })
 
@@ -23,8 +25,8 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     (fetchFromGitHub {
       owner  = "berkeley-abc";
       repo   = "abc";
-      rev    = "f23ea8e33f6d5cc54f58bec6d9200483e5d8c704";
-      sha256 = "1xwmq3k5hfavdrs7zbqjxh35kr2pis4i6hhzrq7qzyzs0az0hls9";
+      rev    = "ae6716b064c842f45109a88e84dca71fe4cc311f";
+      sha256 = "0g39k16dmrl6q73q39yr5yd9r4rcliz5zxzbnwzh29z9xwi6ipw8";
       name   = "yosys-abc";
     })
   ];
@@ -32,7 +34,9 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
 
   enableParallelBuilding = true;
   nativeBuildInputs = [ pkgconfig ];
-  buildInputs = [ tcl readline libffi python3 bison flex ];
+  buildInputs = [ tcl readline libffi python3 bison flex protobuf ];
+
+  makeFlags = [ "ENABLE_PROTOBUF=1" ];
 
   patchPhase = ''
     substituteInPlace ../yosys-abc/Makefile \
@@ -49,6 +53,9 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     make config-${if stdenv.cc.isClang or false then "clang" else "gcc"}
     echo 'ABCREV := default' >> Makefile.conf
     makeFlags="PREFIX=$out $makeFlags"
+
+    # we have to do this ourselves for some reason...
+    (cd misc && ${protobuf}/bin/protoc --cpp_out ../backends/protobuf/ ./yosys.proto)
   '';
 
   meta = {