stream in/out multiple layouts at once

Hi chetifrega

When exporting gds, you can leave "Top cell name" field in the xstream/pipo form as empty. All cells in the library will then be streamed out to a single gds file. Assuming that all your layouts to be modified are in a single library, you can use this method to export them as a single gds file and then conveniently import the gds file using the correct layer map file.

I actually don't think that streamOut/In is not a suitable for resolving this problem because you lose pcells and their lib references in the process. Perhaps a skillscript to do the layer replacement in each cell would be better.

Best regards
Quek

thank you, it seems to work.

the risk of losing pcells is not an issue in my case, since my layout consist just in metal layer arrays, however I am curious about your warning.
If the "convert Pcell to geometry" button is not checked (options), should not the pcells be preserved?

Hi chetigrega

"Convert pcell to geometry" determines if pcells will be flattened during stream out. If you do not enable this, the pcells will be re-imported as normal cells.

To preserve pcells functionalities (this means that after stream-in, it should also behave exactly as per the same pcell in the techlib. Change W/L and the layout should change, etc), pipo has a "Keep pcell" option. But this option does not work 100% of the time and can be quite troublesome. In fact, if I enable this option during pipo stream-in, I get pcell evaluation failure for my generic pdk. : )

Hence even if you are using pipo, it cannot be guranteed that you will get back the pcell functionalities if you use the option.

Xstream from IC614 does not has this option because it has been decided that this option is not really necessary and does not really help in preserving data efficiently. Keeping the original layout data is always the best.

Best regards
Quek