Pcell inside GDSII

alto

As far I remember GDSII does not support pcell but klayout use GDSII to store them.
I guess it store the parameters with function/macro name used, with the hope that when the layout is opened back the macro is there.
Is this correct ?
Give that, is this GDSII still compatible with GDSII create by other tools ?

Matthias

Hi @alto,

Yes, that is the way PCells are stored.

But KLayout writes a copy of the PCell content to GDS. So when you open a GDS file without having the macro that serves the PCell, you will still get the full layout, but you cannot modify it.

The way, this information is stored in GDS is format compatible, but KLayout uses a separate top cell to store the information in way, GDS readers will be able to digest it, even if they do not understand what it is for.

Matthias