traditionally been kept for backwards compatibility. However, the
operation of "ext2spice" and "ext2sim" as separate programs has
become extremely difficult to maintain, and so it has been dropped
in favor of folding both into the program as commands, as was done
a long time ago in the Tcl/Tk version.
cell properties in natural sort order when writing a .mag file.
This should remove the last bit of indeterminism in the output
of magic database files.
the label to be attached to a non-contact type when the label is
actually over a contact are not handled correctly when checking if
multiple labels should belong to the same port record.
due to issues of declaring global variables; rather than track
down the correct use, just reworked it so that the value is just
an integer and takes -1 as the default (fixed timestamping
disabled).
"gds datestamp" for LEF reads. When set to non-default, all cell
definitions created from LEF macros will be given the specified
timestamp, which allows the stamps of abstract views to match the
stamps of full views, preventing issues of updated timestamps
whenever a layout is switched between views.
timestamps that are fixed, since the timestamp update routine is
called from too many places, too many times. Instead created a
new cell definition flag indicating a fixed timestamp, which can
be set by "cellname timestamp" for an individual cell, or with
"gds datestamp" for cells read from a GDS file.
the timestamp is updated after reading in CIF or GDS, and managed to
get the timestamp dirty flag to remain clear after reading when
"gds datestamp" is used. This includes a modification of the timestamp
update routine that only updates timestamps on a single file if only a
single file is being written.
"writeall force <cell>" is used but <cell> doesn't exist, and (2)
to add options "writeall modified" and "writeall noupdate" (which
may or may not be useful).
yesterday's commit to allow the syntax "gds maskhints <types>", in
which mask hints can be restricted to a specific list of layers
rather than all layers which define mask hints in the cifoutput
rule.
behavior, in which all cells read from GDS are given a zero
timestamp, and the timestamp is set when the file is written to
disk, the default behavior now is to set the layout cell's timestamp
from the timestamp provided in the GDS (the creation date timestamp,
specifically). The same command "gds datestamp" implemented in the
previous commit for GDS writes now also applies to GDS reads: If
set to "no", then the timestamp value from the GDS file is
transferred to the layout view (default behavior); if set to "yes",
then the timestamp is set to zero (legacy behavior). If set to
a value, then the value is used as the timestamp.
The website documentation now points to these contents in a clone
of the repository on opencircuitdesign.com, so all future edits of
the command-line documentation will be made directly to the git
repository. Also: Changed the precision of box values printed in
microns from 2 to 3 digits after the decimal place, so that 5 nanometer
grids do not get values clipped in the output.
"gds datestamp <value>" as an option to force a specific datestamp
on the GDS output. This is a third option beyond the previous two
which were either to use the current time or to write zero. The
new option allows an entire library to get a common timestamp, for
example, related to a PDK version number. The "gds nodatestamp"
option has been retained for backwards compatibility.
in a cell to account for the difference between what's in an input
GDS file and what magic would write out itself from the processed
data. This potentially allows library cells to be read in that
will generate the equivalent mask data as output without resorting
to using GDS file references as properties. The method is activated
with the new command option "gds maskhints on" and the default is
off.
file to generate a mask of all the types called out in the section
as being used for parasitic calculations (resistive and capacitive)
and device terminal types. This is supplemented with a list of all
types that are specified in the "connect" and "contact" sections as
connecting to something other than themselves. All remaining types
are considered non-electrical and removed from the list of types
that can be considered electrical nodes. This works a bit better
than the existing method of using "resist <types> None" to specify
non-electrical types, as it is backwardly-compatible to older tech
files. The upshot is that in the worst case, if a type needs to be
extracted as an electrical node but does not satisfy any of the
above criteria, then it should be added to the "resist" list, with
a resistance of 0 if necessary.
time ago by cleaning up excess usage of "equiv" lines in the .ext
file output. The hierarchical extraction code did not distinguish
between node names which were output and those that were not,
requiring a setting "extract do aliases" to force all node aliases
to be output with "equiv" statements. So hierarchical names
might be any alias, whether output or not, and "merge" and "cap"
lines might contain references to nodes that were not output,
causing them to be disconnected nodes. This fix handles the
"extract no aliases" (default) case by flagging node names that
are redundant and not output, and not creating hierarchical names
with them.
If cells are instanced before being defined, causing the GDS parser
to rewind the cell from the top, then the "already defined" error
messages will be suppressed, since it is to be expected that cells
will be seen twice (and ignored the 2nd time). When rewinding, an
output message is issued so that it is clear that the file contains
instances that are used before they are defined, and recommends the
"gds ordering on" setting. Also: Fixed the "gds ordering" command
code so that the command with no third argument returns the state
of the "gds ordering" setting instead of generating a parser error.
found to make ext2spice runtimes very long for large layouts.
The new method is equivalent but doesn't incur the overhead.
Also: Changed a flag check which was causing the substrate node
to be output as a port for certain layouts where the substrate
node connects to no devices, and so should be optimized out.
node representing the global substrate on cells that are abstract
views. Corrected a typecasting issue in ext2spice.c that throws
a compiler warning. Added another check for a cell being editable
when painting, which is a case that was not covered by the
previous code change to address the same issue.
underlying function from fprintf() to fputs(), which was changed for
gcc11 compatibility by Jean-Paul Chaput in github issue #123. Also
corrected a typo from the previous commit.
Implemented a separate check for ports when writing a subcircuit
that cross-checks against the port list in the flattened
extraction. This allows ports that were optimized out during
flattening of the hierarchy to be removed from the cell's port
list, which cuts down on disconnected nodes in the output port
list.
Print the names of the tile types that are illegally overlapping. This
gives us a better idea of what is wrong, eg:
feedback add "Illegal overlap between obsm2 and m2 (types do not connect)" medium
tracing the short path back through stacked contacts. Discovered
a problem with the connectivity search routine (which has been in
the code for a very long time) which will fail to copy contacts
to the selection cell if it has already drawn one of the metal
layers in the same place. This has now been fixed.
stops checking for the "best" path during the feed-forward check
and only enumerates the cost function for every tile in the
selection, moving outward from the source. This keeps the
algorithm efficient.
there was no distinction between a locked file and a new cell
(initial state) before writing to disk. This prevents any new cell
from being saved! Also: Revised the behavior of the "select short"
search, but this still has issues with long run-times on complex
layouts, so this is an ongoing effort.
whenever a process writes a cell to disk, it immediately releases the
file lock it had on that cell, which is clearly not the intent of file
locking. Fixed this issue. On a related topic, revised the "cellname
writeable" command so that it can make a cell editable even if the cell
has an advisory lock and cannot be made writeable. Perhaps there should
be a clearer distinction here between "writeable" and "editable". Also:
Reconsidered the previous commit, which removed the "--disable-locking"
from the configuration options. Because some operating systems may not
implement fnctl()-based file locking (Cygwin, for one, apparently doesn't),
it is still useful to be able to completely remove the function, in case
the operating system will fail to recognize the fnctl() values in the
code. Now, file locking behavior can be permanently removed through the
configuration option, or temporarily disabled from the command line.
post error messages when a GDS library addendum is read. It now
assumes that if a cell is called but not defined in the GDS, and
that cell happens to be in memory already, then this is intentional.
stack routines in utils/stack.c instead of relying on a recursive
routine, which will run out of the computer's stack space pretty
quickly on a large layout.
Tim Edwards
Jean-Paul Chaput
Anton Blanchard
susinxy