Review of Calibre deck files

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Google for 'calview.cellmap file' and 'hcell file' or 'hcell file calibre usage'

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The unique file required to perform a DRC check with Calibre is the technology-specific design rules file. Usually a Calibre/DRC/ directory can be found in the top PDK installation directory for the technology you are working with. The name of the rule file might be something like calibre.drc, drc.rules or drc.cal etc. and varies from techonology to technology. Actually different rule files can be shipped with the PDK referring to different available metal schemes, or a main rule file can recursively include external rule files specific to particular aspects related to the DRC process (e.g. antenna effects, latchup etc.). To see all external rule files included by the main rule file you can for instance grep the main file for INCLUDE, e.g.

cat calibre.drc | grep INCLUDE

Specific documentation and examples might have been included somewhere in a doc/ directory as well.

If the name of the rule file is quite long and complex, it is a good practice to create a symbolic link e.g. calibre.drc, drc.cal or drc.rules to the rule file,

ln -s <DRC rule file> calibre.drc

LVS file

To be completed…

source.added file

To be completed…

xcell/hcell file

A xcell or hcell file is used to perform hierarchical LVS or PEX. To be completed…

xRC rule files

As a matter of fact, Calibre xRC works directly with Calibre LVS rule files. Thus, the main Calibre LVS file provides also the same template to be used to perform the parasitic extraction. The main Calibre LVS file usually contains a specific switch that can be commented/uncommented to use the same deck as a PEX (xRC) command file too. It could be a line in form of

//#DEFINE PEXRUN

or

//#define RC_DECK

or something different depending on the particular technology you are working with. In some cases, further hand modifications to the main LVS template file might be required in order to create the complete rule file for a particular metal scheme.

If the name of the rule file is quite long and complex, it is a good practice to create a symbolic link e.g. calibre.rcx, rcx.cal or pex.rules to the rule file,

ln -s <PEX rule file> calibre.rcx

cell-mapping file

A so called cell-mapping file is required if you want to create a Calibre extracted view to be imported in form of a standard schematic view or a layout view into Cadence IC 6.1.x (Virtuoso). A cell-mapping file is just a simple plain text table which maps a Calibre extracted device to a device symbol of the Cadence environment (e.g. ideal capacitors and resistors of the analogLib). The proper cell-mapping file usually comes with the technology and can be found in the main Calibre/ directory of the PDK or under the dedicated PEX directory, something like Calibre/rcx/ or Calibre/xRC/. The file name can be calibre.cellmap or calview.cellmap

Note
The cell-mapping file must be specified before running the PEX with Calibre xRC! This can be done through the Calibre menu loaded in Virtuoso Layout Editor L/XL. Left click on

Calibre ⇒ Setup ⇒ Calibre View…

and specify in the Cellmap File entry of the Calibre View Setup window the proper absolute path to your .cellmap file, e.g.

/export/eltXXX/disk0/username/test/calibre/rcx/calview.cellmap

For more information about the syntax of the mapping format, please refere to the Appendix A: Interface to Cadence Virtuoso of the Calibre Interactive User’s Manual,

/export/elt59xl/disk0/mentor/docs/docs_cal_2010.3_19.12/docs/pdfdocs/calbr_inter_user.pdf

xcell/hcell files

A xcell or hcell file is used to perform hierarchical LVS or PEX. To be completed…

Google for 'flat lvs vs hierarchical lvs'

http://www.edaboard.com/thread152227.html

Last update: Luca Pacher - Feb 3, 2014