problems when using techGetSpacingRule

Hi Adhil,

Are you sure that the rule is encoded in the tech file?  You could inspect the minSpacing rules to see what is present, for example:

 setof(minsp techGetSpacingRules(tfId) car(minsp)=="minSpacing")
=> (("minSpacing" 1.0 "Nwell") 
     ("minSpacing" 0.3 "Oxide") 
     ("minSpacing" 0.3 "Poly") 
     ("minSpacing" 0.4 "Nimp") 
     ("minSpacing" 0.4 "Pimp")
     ("minSpacing" 0.2 "Cont") 
     ... 
     ("minSpacing" 0.0 "Metal3" "Via2") 
     ("minSpacing" 0.2 "Oxide" "Poly") 
     ("minSpacing" 0.2 "Poly" "Cont")
   )

So my example shows three two-layer minSpacing rules.

For the other question, for PCells the "master" of the PCell is termed the superMaster, if looking up from the instance you will see the master first (that is to say the cell that has this particular set of parameter values) and above this is the superMaster (the parent that is stored on disk).  The superMaster is the "default" PCell, but even if you were to place an instance with default parameters a (sub)-master would be created.  If you are looking 'down' from the PCell you have the PCell master, a sub-master(s) and then the instance(s).  Although this may be confusing, I hope that it answers your question and maybe sheds some light on the terminology used.

Regards,

Lawrence.

Ya I am a bit confused, let me get this straight.

1. the supermaster has the parameters of the parent pcell stored in real memory.
2. the submaster has the parameters of an instantiated pcell (which means when it is placed on a particular cellview).
3. then what is the master?

Adhil

Adhil,

Let me try stating it differently to see if it is clearer for you.

Every instance in the design is an instantiation of a master. So if you do instId~>master you'll get the cellView object containing a set of shapes, instances, and other objects which represents the thing being instantiated. For normal cells, this is identical to the cellView you'd get when you open the instantiated cellView directly with dbOpenCellViewByType(libName cellName viewName) . If it is a pcell that is instantiated, the master is actually a subMaster. A subMaster is the cellView for the particular variant being instantiated - i.e. the specific combination of parameters that was used on the instance. All instances with the same set of parameters (for the same pcell) will share the same subMaster. However, if you were to use the dbOpenCellViewByType(pcellLibName pcellCellName pcellViewName) you wouldn't get this subMaster because it wouldn't know anything about the specific set of parameters; instead you get the superMaster which is the starting point for the pcell. You can also get from any subMaster to the corresponding superMaster by doing instId~>master~>superMaster. Note that only pcells have superMasters.

Does that help?

Andrew.