SKILL to modify layout parameter

A parameter and a property are two distinct objects, a parameter is assigned to pcells as the interface to the pcell program. A property is a way to assign data to a database object like a cellView master or an instance.

I am assuming you are assigning a property to a cellView master. When you find the instance, you are assigning/adding/getting the value of the property on the instance's master cellView. That cellView master in the schematic is a symbol view. The symbol view should have corresponding views in the same library for layout and schematic. If the layout is in another library or goes by another name, you have to follow your design group methodology to get the correct library/cell name. Once you have determined the name of the layout cellView, you can open that master using dbOpenCellViewByType with "a" for append. Then you can add the property using dbReplaceProp on the cellView ID.

 masterId = dbOpenCellViewByType( instId~>libName "option" "layout" nil "a" )

dbReplaceProp( masterId  "connectivity" 'string "new value" )

dbSave( masterId )

 I hope I understood what you needed to do.

Ted

 Hi Theopan,

 I appreciate your response. It is a parameter in a layout cell that I'm am trying to set.  However the value of the parameter comes from the corresponding schematic view property.

The difficulty for me is not setting parameters. What I've been unable to figure out is how to extract that value from the same instance in the schematic.

 I have a cell with numerous instantiations of the 'option' cell. The instantiations in the schematic are using pPar("var") as value for the "connectivity" property. In the layout the connectivity parameter is hardcoded to an integer value. What I want to do is grab the value from the schematic instantiation and set it to the value for the corresponding layout instantiation.

 I can get the values of each schematic instantiation in a list but I haven't yet been able to get the values set is the correct layout instantiations.

 Hope that makes sense. This is one of those things that is really actually very simple to show but difficult to explain.

Cheers,

OK, there is a difference in the use of certain terms here. When you speak of a view, it is assumed that you are refering to the master of the cellView. The property would be on the master and would be the same no matter how many times the cell was instantiated. In your case, you want to modify the parameter on a layout instance based on the corresponding schematic instance.

If you are using the VXL layout methodology, each instance in the schematic has an instance name and the layout has a corresponding  instance name (based on the hierarchy which was flattened from the schematic). I don't know if there is an exposed API for finding the corresponding named instances but the names are hierarchical with a pipe (|) as a separator.

If you are not using VXL, you have to use some extraction tool to find the correspondence between the schematic and master. You will have to get more help to figure that one out.

Ted

 It is tricky. For now I am assuming that the baseName (instance name in the views) are in line. I might be able to get something to work with that assumption. Definitely not a bullet proof method but that's my approach until someone with more skill than me comes across with a better suggestion.

 Thanks again,

Cheers,

 This may have worked. I haven't thoroughly verified it yet.

 procedure(reset_default_param()
    let((clv csv instList layInstList schInstList schInstName schParamValue numelem)
        clv = geGetEditCellView()
        csv = dbOpenCellViewByType(clv~>libName clv~>cellName "schematic" "schematic" "r")

        layInstList = clv~>instances
        schInstList = csv~>instances

        schInstName = setof(inst schInstList inst~>cellName == "option")~>baseName
        schParamValue = list()

        foreach(inst schInstList
            if(inst~>cellName == "option" then
                schParamValue = append(schParamValue list( dbSearchPropByName(inst "connectivity")~>value))
            ) ; end if
        ) ; end foreach

        dbClose(csv)

        numelem = 1
        foreach(inst layInstList
            foreach(elem schInstName
                if(inst~>baseName == strcat("|" elem) then
                    printf("\nmatch")
                    dbReplaceProp(inst "connectivity" 'string nthelem(numelem schParamValue))
                ) ; end if
            ) ; foreach
            numelem = numelem + 1
        ) ; end foreach
    ) ; end let
) ; end procedure
 

 Something to try is to search through the instHeaders instead of the instances. The instHeader defines the virtual memory master for the instances. It is much quicker becasue there are fewer instHeaders than instances.

schIh = setof(  ih csv~>instHeaders ih~>cellName == "option" )
schInsts = foreach( mapcan schIh schIh~>instances )

; Check the last line because I don't have Virtuoso access from home

; It should return a flattened list of the instances of the cell option

layIh = setof( ih clv~>instHeaders ih~>cellName == "option" )
layInsts = foreach( mapcan layIh layIh~>instances )

I think mapcan is the right mappng function to use but read about them as they are very useful.

It will greatly speed up your program as you are only sorting a few instHeaders.

 You can also make a DPL or a table which will map the schematic values using the schematic instance name. I would use a table:

schParamValue = makeTable('values "" )

;; Add the pipe to the beginning of the name
schParamValue[strcat( "|" inst~>name) ] =  dbSearchPropByName( inst "connectivity")~>value

In the layout processing part you can then get the layout instance name and get the value from the  table directly:

dbReplaceProp( inst "connectivity" 'string schParamValue[layoutInst~>name]

Look up the table data structure for more info.

Ted