Automatically placement of PINS on NETS

First, make sure you understand terminals, pins, and figures. When you see a "pin" in layout, what you are seeing is a figure (like a rectangle or polygon) whose parent is a pin. That pin has a terminal as a parent. A terminal can have several pins.

foreach(myTerm cv->terminals
foreach(myPin myTerm->pins
myNet = myPin->net
figs_on_net = myNet->figs

;; write code to figure out which figure on the net (i.e. one of the members of figs_on_net)
;; you want to move the pin figure (myPin->fig) to.
;;
;; figure out what the pin figure type is with myPin->fig->objType
;; suppose you found that the objType is "rect" (typical) and you need to move
;; to the location specified by newBbox, then do
myPin->fig->bBox = newBbox

;; if it is a path or polygon you need to do something different.

;; and move the label too. Labels are usually children.
foreach( lab myPin->fig->children
;; put some objType checking in here...
lab->xy = centerBox(newBbox)

;; could also figure out how much the pin moved by and adjust the xy position by the same delta
;; many variations and possibilities.
)
)
)

this obviously isn't a fully coded with checks for corner cases example but maybe it is enough to move you in the right direction.

-Dan (paying the community dues....)

Hi Dan,

The approach didn't seem to work properly.

Then I tried to propagate pins from instances to the top level using the following method. Also didn't seem to work well.

foreach(term cv~>terminals
; iterate over all the pins for this terminal
foreach(pin term~>pins
pinFig=pin~>fig
net=term~>net
; only do this if there aren't more than one inst term
unless(cdr(net~>instTerms)
instTerm=car(net~>instTerms)
;childTerm=instTerm~>terminal
childPinFig=car(instTerm~>pins)~>fig
; location within the instance master
location=centerBox(childPinFig~>bBox)
printf("Location is: %N\n" childTerm)

; transform to the top level coordinate system
location=dbTransformPoint(location instTerm~>inst~>transform)
pinFigLocation=centerBox(pinFig~>bBox)
; calculate the overall transform to move the pin to the new location
transform=dbConcatTransform(list(-xCoord(pinFigLocation):-yCoord(pinFigLocation) "R0" 1) location)
dbMoveFig(pinFig transform)
)
)
)

Thanks for the help.

Danny

Danny,

Without having tried your code, what "didn't work well" about it? It looks (at a high level glance) as if it should be moving the top level pins over the pin on an instance connected to that net, provided that there's only a single instance connected to that net. What actually happens when you run this code?

Regards,

Andrew.

Hi Andrew,

The code, as is, fails with the transformation.

*Error* dbTransformPoint: Invalid point - nil

Also I am interested to have the current Top Level pin name and not the pin's name below.

Thanks,

Danny

Hi Andrew,

So another approach is to propagate the PINS from lower level and give them the current level names using the following code (Instead of selecting the PINS at the current level and have them moved to their terminals). Didn't work well...

procedure(PropPins1()
cv=geGetWindowCellView()

foreach(inst cv~>instances
foreach(instTerm inst~>instTerms
; if this is an I/O of this cell
when(instTerm~>net~>term
foreach(pin instTerm~>term~>pins
foreach(fig pin~>figs
; propagate the pin shape up to this level
newFig=dbCreateRect(cv list("m1" "drawing") dbTransformBBox(fig~>bBox inst~>transform))
dbCreatePin(instTerm~>net newFig nil instTerm~>net~>term)

; Assign a Label over the PIN with the current level PIN Name
netName = newFig~>net~>name
when(netName = newFig~>net~>name
lbl = dbCreateLabel(
newFig~>cv
list("m1" "lvs")
centerBox(newFig~>bBox);
netName
"centerCenter"
"R0"
"roman"
0.0625
)


)
)
)
)
)
)


Thanks,

Danny

Unknown said:

*Error* dbTransformPoint: Invalid point - nil

Also I am interested to have the current Top Level pin name and not the pin's name below.

I suggest you use the SKILL IDE to debug this - or put print statements in to print the variables used to form the arguments to dbTransformPoint - normal debugging procedures apply here. This is telling you that the first point to dbTransformPoint is nil, which means that the location variable is nil, which probably means that childPinFig was nil, and so on...

Regards,

Andrew.

Here is the working code that will do the job:
Thank you all for the help and support.

Danny

procedure(MovePins()
cv=geGetWindowCellView()
foreach(term cv~>terminals
; iterate over all the pins for this terminal
foreach(pin term~>pins
pinFig=pin~>fig
net=term~>net
; only do this if there aren't more than one inst term
unless(cdr(net~>instTerms)
instTerm=car(net~>instTerms)
childTerm=instTerm~>term
childPinFig=car(instTerm~>term~>pins)~>fig
; location within the instance master
location=centerBox(childPinFig~>bBox)
; transform to the top level coordinate system
location=dbTransformPoint(location instTerm~>inst~>transform)
pinFigLocation=centerBox(pinFig~>bBox)
; calculate the overall transform to move the pin to the new location
;transform=dbConcatTransform(list(-xCoord(pinFigLocation):-yCoord(pinFigLocation) "R0" 1) location)
transform=dbConcatTransform(list(-xCoord(pinFigLocation):-yCoord(pinFigLocation) "R0" 1) list(xCoord(location):yCoord(location) "R0" 1))
dbMoveFig(pinFig cv transform)
)
)
)
)

With all permission, one more question please. Currently the script moves floating PINS onto instances pins/terminals. What if I would like to move floating PINS to shapes (rectangles, paths, polygons) with the same net name. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Danny

Hello Danny,

this script worked pretty well for me, however if there are some un connected/floating pins at the top level then the script stops.
I see the top pin assignment to the instance level pin is purely based on the pin order listed by cv~>terminals~>pins and cv~>terminals~>net may I know if the pin order is always consistent? if not then things can go quite wrong...

also what happens when there are more than one vdd/gnd pins placed in instance level and has only one vdd/gnd pin at top level does this script still work?

thanks
Jaggi

Hi Jaggi,

The script works to move PINS to instances pins at TOP LEVEL. It doesn't move existing floating pins if not on below instances. That's the additional functionality that I am looking for. The pin order should be consistent but currently it does not cover more then 1 pin of same net...

Thanks,

Danny