How to get the database address of the subModule?

I mean, How can we get the database address of these Level ONE sub-Module.

It depends on whether you want to the pointer to the instantiation of the Level ONE sub-module -or- the master cell of the sub-module.

If the Verilog netlist looks like this:

module top(clk);
input clk;
wire net;
a i_a(.clk(clk), .out(net));
b i_b(.clk(clk), .in(net));
endmodule

module a(clk,out);
input clk;
output out;
DFFX1 i0(.CK(clk), .Q(out));
endmodule

module b(clk, in);
input clk;
input in;
DFFX1 i0(.CK(clk), .D(in));
DFFX1 i1(.CK(clk), .D(in));
endmodule

Then you could access the instantiation of module a ("i_a") with this:

encounter 2> set hinst [dbGetHInstByName i_a]
0x15c06d84

Or if you wanted to look at the master cell "a" you could access it like this:

encounter 3> set cell [dbGetCellByName a]
0x15964ec8

Whether you work with the instantiation -or- the master cell depends on what data you're trying to access or manipulate. Feel free to follow-up with an additional post if further clarification would be useful.

Hope this helps,
Bob

Thank you for your in-time response to my post.
By dbGet*ByName do retrieve the DB address of the NAMED Objects. To use these kind of command, I must know the hierarchical topology of my verilog netlist, which means I must know the sub-modules’ name.

Of cause I can open the Design Browser, and type the sub-modules’ name into my scripts. But this is not a good way to do things, since my scripts are also used by other Block-level designers. (we use hierachical design method to implement the back-end design flow), It’s better to get the sub-module names automatically.

I come across this question while I writing scripts to get the sub-module related IO Pins.
dbForEachCellFTerm [dbgTopCell] ftermPtr { } get all the PINs.
If I use this scripts structure, I have lots of pain to decide which sub-module of particular PIN belongs to. So if I can get the Level ONE sub-module names, then I can report the IO Pins related to this sub-module in a neat way:
dbForEachCellFTerm $subModuleCellPtr ftermPtr { }

I got the answer


dbForEachHInstHInst [dbCellHInst [dbgTopCell]] hinstPtr {
if [dbIsHInstHInst $hinstPtr] {
puts [dbHInstName $hinstPtr]
}
}