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Converting a existing library to PCELL library

RK56

Hi,

I have a library of 500+ cells with schematic, symbol and layout views. Now we have decided to create another variant which differs only by single layer (VT variants). So instead of creating another set of 500+ cells I'm looking for an option to convert the existing views to PCELL views and provide an option to chose the Vt.

I have good experience in writing SKILL scripts but I have not tried anything related to PCELLs. So kindly provide me some directions.

Thank you

Ramakrishnan

Parents

  • Ramakrishnan,

    First of all, it doesn't strike me as being any significant effort to "maintain" these layoutTemplate views. You could leave the views as "layout" views and then create (as pcells) new layoutPCell views - all you have is a master fixed layout view which is then referenced by the pcell - which is a common piece of code. Put another way, the master layout (or layoutTemplate) is just a normal layout view that you edit in the layout editor, and you can edit that as normal. The pcell would never be edited in the layout editor - it's generated using SKILL code and once generated you wouldn't need to touch it again unless you wanted to change the behaviour.

    In contrast. the approach you're suggesting would be a major amount of work to maintain. Dumping the SKILL code which is equivalent to the fixed layout and then editing that to have some parameterised behaviour is a lot of work (per pcell), and then if you ever want to edit the fixed portions of the layout you can't - you'd have to figure out where in the SKILL code that part of the work was done and do lots of edits.

    So I really don't understand your reluctance to do it the way I suggested. 

    You could potentially use the ancient graphical pcell editor (Launch->Plugins->PCell) to make your fixed layout parameterised, but  you'd then have to do such an interactive edit for each and every cell in  your library which also sounds like a huge amount of work compared with the very simple and easy to maintain approach I suggested at the beginning.

    Regards,

    Andrew.

Reply

  • Ramakrishnan,

    First of all, it doesn't strike me as being any significant effort to "maintain" these layoutTemplate views. You could leave the views as "layout" views and then create (as pcells) new layoutPCell views - all you have is a master fixed layout view which is then referenced by the pcell - which is a common piece of code. Put another way, the master layout (or layoutTemplate) is just a normal layout view that you edit in the layout editor, and you can edit that as normal. The pcell would never be edited in the layout editor - it's generated using SKILL code and once generated you wouldn't need to touch it again unless you wanted to change the behaviour.

    In contrast. the approach you're suggesting would be a major amount of work to maintain. Dumping the SKILL code which is equivalent to the fixed layout and then editing that to have some parameterised behaviour is a lot of work (per pcell), and then if you ever want to edit the fixed portions of the layout you can't - you'd have to figure out where in the SKILL code that part of the work was done and do lots of edits.

    So I really don't understand your reluctance to do it the way I suggested. 

    You could potentially use the ancient graphical pcell editor (Launch->Plugins->PCell) to make your fixed layout parameterised, but  you'd then have to do such an interactive edit for each and every cell in  your library which also sounds like a huge amount of work compared with the very simple and easy to maintain approach I suggested at the beginning.

    Regards,

    Andrew.

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