Electric VLSI Design System User's Manual

Chapter 8: Creating New Technologies

8-1: Technology Editing

Although there are many technology descriptions in Electric, there are many more in the world. To accommodate this, there are three ways to define a technology in Electric:

The Technology Editor allows you to modify existing technologies and create new ones. The technology editor is describe here and in Sections 8-2 through 8-9.
The Technology Creation Wizard constructs technologies from simple process parameters. The technology creation wizard is described in Section 8-11.
The Technology XML Files define technologies and can be created or hand-edited. The file format is described in Section 8-10.

The technology editor works by converting a technology into a library of cells. You then edit the cells, using familiar Electric commands, and make changes to the technology. Finally, the technology editor translates the library back into a new technology.

Libraries which describe a technology are called technology libraries. They use elements from the Artwork technology to describe their information. Special commands from the Edit / Technology Editing menu aid in the manipulation of these libraries.
There are four types of cells in a technology library which describe the layers, arcs, nodes, and support. They are separated into these groups in the cell explorer. The layer cells all begin with the name "layer-" and each one defines a layer in the technology. For example, the cell called "layer-Metal" defines the metal layer. The node and arc cells correspond to the primitives in the technology. Their names always begin with "node-" and "arc-". The support cell is always called "factors". Any other cell in the library is ignored.

Figure 8.23

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