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C++ Pcells

JayR

Not sure if this is the right forum for this question, but I'm sure I can be directed there from here.    Are C++ Pcells a viable alternative now for running within Virtuoso?   I have no interest in all that interoperable/iPDK stuff.   I'm just looking at this as a possible way to IP-protect my Pcells, and maybe get them to render more quickly in Virtuoso, and in any custom-made OpenAccess applications I may have.   Plus code reusability between other OA C++ applications (similar to how you can reuse SKILL code between Pcells and other SKILL utilities which draw shapes).  

thanks!

  • Cadence does not support non-SKILL PCells in Virtuoso. Whilst you can do this via OA (and any support from that would have to come from Si2), some Virtuoso functionality may not be accessible if you go down this route.

    Note that you can use SKILL Pcells (sort of) in non-Cadence OA-based applications by using the Express PCell plugin which allows Virtuoso to capture the rendered pcell data so that it can be used in other applications. This is also a very effective way of improving performance - you only need to cache the layout for each pcell variant the first time you use it and then in subsequent sessions it uses the cache rather than re-executing the code.

    Regards,

    Andrew.

  • Hi Jay,

    In addition to Andrew's reply, you can store your code as a context file (byte-code compiled SKILL) which is compact, faster to load (doesn't need to run through the parser) and due to he binary format it is not human-readable - this would protect your IP.

    Best regards,

    Lawrence.
  • Okay, thanks. Short answer is "no".

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