diff --git a/.gitmodules b/.gitmodules
index 9f3cb367a..cbbae7f31 100644
--- a/.gitmodules
+++ b/.gitmodules
@@ -11,3 +11,6 @@
 [submodule "cxxopts"]
 	path = libs/cxxopts
 	url = https://github.com/jarro2783/cxxopts
+[submodule "libs/backward-cpp"]
+	path = libs/backward-cpp
+	url = git@github.com:bombela/backward-cpp.git
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 4c66e8d69..b0561eeac 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ SANITIZER =
 # SANITIZER = cfi
 
 # Prefer using ENABLE_DEBUG over setting these
-OPT_LEVEL := -O3
+OPT_LEVEL := -O3 -g
 GCC_LTO :=
 CLANG_LTO := -flto=thin
 
@@ -156,6 +156,10 @@ else
 LINKFLAGS += -rdynamic
 ifneq ($(OS), OpenBSD)
 LIBS += -lrt
+
+LIBS += -lbfd         # SILIMATE: support for backward-cpp
+CXXFLAGS += -DBACKWARD_HAS_BFD # SILIMATE: support for backward-cpp
+
 endif
 endif
 
diff --git a/kernel/yosys.cc b/kernel/yosys.cc
index 437d67ed1..097dd3a37 100644
--- a/kernel/yosys.cc
+++ b/kernel/yosys.cc
@@ -20,6 +20,8 @@
 #include "kernel/yosys.h"
 #include "kernel/celltypes.h"
 
+#include "libs/backward-cpp/backward.hpp"
+
 #ifdef YOSYS_ENABLE_READLINE
 #  include <readline/readline.h>
 #  include <readline/history.h>
@@ -548,7 +550,7 @@ void yosys_setup()
 	if(already_setup)
 		return;
 	already_setup = true;
-
+	backward::SignalHandling* sh = new backward::SignalHandling;
 #ifdef WITH_PYTHON
 	// With Python 3.12, calling PyImport_AppendInittab on an already
 	// initialized platform fails (such as when libyosys is imported
diff --git a/libs/backward-cpp b/libs/backward-cpp
new file mode 160000
index 000000000..51f070045
--- /dev/null
+++ b/libs/backward-cpp
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Subproject commit 51f0700452cf71c57d43c2d028277b24cde32502