What is the syntax for creating pins withing SKILL

Hi,

Yes, sort of.  You need to create the pin figure first, and this is the one that you specify the material of, then you use dbCreatePin:

 dbCreatePin(
  d_netId
  d_figId
  [ t_pinName /nil]
  [ t_termId /nil]
 ) 

The pin figure can be a rectangle, polygon etc. (but is usually one of these).

Hope this answers your question.

Regards,

Lawrence.

 thanks for the help.  as for the documentation, cdnshelp does work but it only opens up an SOC8.10 library.  I haven't been able to find any section where SKILL commands are laid out. Any help with this would be appreciated.  I've also asked other lab members but theyve informed me that the documentation has never worked and I am the first person to actually make it work.

Which IC version are you using?

If you type:

cds_root icfb

And then look for the doc dir in that directory, is it present?

More hints once I have your answers.

Regards,

Andrew

In cdnshelp, what do you see for the File->Library menu, does it list your IC61x or even the IC5141 documentation library?

Have you tried having IC61x first in your path and running cdnshelp from there?

Regards,

Lawrence.

 its IC61x.  the internal links to documentation are broken but i found a work around.  i just open through firefox by finding the html files or type startFinder in the CIW window. 

 Issue almost resolved.  I created the net and understand the command for creating pins.  Using this code:

db_outnet=dbCreateNet(db_outcell OUT [)

dbCreatePin(db_outnet d_figId [OUT] [)

  However I don't understand how to add/create a square figure.  Could someone provide an example or command with parameters please?  Also, where i can specify where the pin should be located?

thank you again. 

 Hi,

You can use dbCreateRect() (I think Andrew mentioned this earlier?)

 dbCreateRect( 
  d_cellView 
  ( tx_layer [ t_purpose ] ) 
  l_bBox 
 )

 Store the result of this and use it as input to the dbCreatePin command. The l_bBox is the bounding box, i.e. the co-ordinates of the lower-left corner and theupper-right corner of the rectangle you wish to create, e.g. list(0:0 1:1) will make a 1 micron square at the origin (well, not centered around the origin).

I hope this is what you were looking for?

Lawrence.

Someting like this, using your code example

db_outnet=dbCreateNet(db_outcell OUT [)

db_pinFig = dbCreateRect( db_outcell  list("metal1" "drawing")  list(0:0 1:1)  )

dbCreatePin(db_outnet db_pinFig [OUT] [) 

This will create a rectangle from the origin (0:0) to 1:1 on the "metal1" drawing layer
I hope this helps

Regards,
Lawrence.

For the documentation, if you run "cdnshelp", it normally defaults to opening the documentation from the installation that cdnshelp is being picked up from.

You can point to another installation by doing:

File->Library->...

and then you may have a choice of IC61 whatever. If it's not there, you can use the File->Library->Open Library, and then navigate to the root of your IC61X installation, then into doc, then into xmlreg, and finally pick the library.lbr file. Once added the first time, it will be listed in the sets of documentation under File->Library.

Then you can pick that library, and do searching etc within it. Much easier.

If you had been using IC5141, it's also possible to set up IC5141 documentation to be accessible with cdnshelp. To do this you need write access to the IC5141 doc directory, and you just have to do (once):

cdnshelp -refresh -hierarchy <IC5141instDir>/doc

and OK the forms. This will create the xmlreg/library.lbr (and related files) within the IC5141 doc dir. 

I do this all the time, because I far prefer the newer cdnshelp interface over and above the old cdsdoc/web-browser based interface that was in IC5141.

Best Regards,

Andrew.