Custom IC Design Blogs

A large symbol with hundreds of pins is difficult to manage and makes a design messy. With more complex designs and advanced technology, splitting up blocks has now become a useful feature of any design.

The Split Symbols feature introduced in the ICADVM 20.1 base release in Virtuoso Schematic Editor provides a solution to easily and effectively manage large symbols by splitting them into multiple partial symbols. Split Symbols lets you split large symbol masters and helps in improving the legibility of the schematic. Large PCB and package schematics benefit from this feature.

Using the Split Symbols feature, you can reduce the size of symbols within a schematic. The pins can be logically categorized and placed within dedicated part symbols. This makes it simpler to place and manage a large number of pins. Also, it is easier to visualize, route, and trace the net connectivity, and the design connectivity remains the same.

Note: The primary use of this enhancement is in the Virtuoso MultiTech Framework flow.

Let's now see the various steps required to split a large symbol into multiple small symbols.

Looks exciting? Then play around with this feature in Virtuoso Schematic Editor and see how it works for you. 

To learn more about the Split Symbol feature, watch the Split Symbols video available on the Cadence Learning & Support portal. Click the video link now or visit the Cadence Learning & Support portal and search for this video under Video Library.

Happy reading and stay safe!

Parul Agrawal

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About Virtuoso Video Diary

Virtuoso Video Diary is an online journal that relays information about Virtuoso videos that are available in the video library on the Cadence Support portal. Hundreds of interesting videos on a wide variety of new and exciting Virtuoso features have already been created. Virtuoso Video Diary brings you direct links to these videos and other related material, on a regular basis. To receive notifications about new blogs in this series, click Subscribe and submit your email ID in the Subscriptions box.