I have a problem adding custom vias in IC 6

Hi,

I used to do this many times in IC5 and it worked fine, but our company decided to switch to IC 6 for the new projects and I am stuck. The problem is adding the customized vias that are coming with the standard cells IP library (in the lef file) so importing the def file that results from Encounter will find them and instatiate them in the correct places.

In IC5 I used to import the lef file having the standard cells and technology info into a library attached to the main pdk techlib ( we are using TSMC, used 0.18um until now, current project is in 0.11). The import process was adding the abstract views of the standard cells in the library and the technology information into the techlib.

I tried the same thing in IC6. It created the standard cells abstract views ( it is not really important for what I use them for, but I was surprised that the metal1 in the abstract views was imported as METAL1:drawing instead of METAL1:net as in IC5). There was a lot of technology info that was added or modified in the techlib also. But the vias that I was expecting are not showing. I dumped the techlib and they do show up in "customViaDefs" section but, unlike the other vias in that section, the viewname for them is "via", not "symbolic" or "layout". Like this:

(VIA1   tsmc11rf   VIA1    via   METAL1 METAL2  1.02)

If I try to instantiate them manually in a block, they do not show up in any group. If I import the def file with a digital block, they kind of show up ( if I select the area where a via should be I can see something, but the size is zero). I cannot find any info in the Cadence documentation about how this info should be entered. Also, I see some other vias in that section, like via2ts for example, that also have only one line, like:

(via2ts   tsmc11rf  via2ts  symbolic   METAL2  METAL3   1.02)

When I instantiate such a via, it is a cross via with M2 extension on y axis much longer than in the regular cross via ( for minimum metal area if you stack several vias)

I would appreciate if anybody can tell me where is the rest of the info for these vias located because it is definitely not showing up in the dump file. Or how to add the fias from the lef file in the technology.

Thanks a lot