GDS2 Libname Record Propagation

LinuxLou

Hi Matthias,

In much of my automation I have come to rely on metadata encoded directly into GDS files. It serves to
identify the purpose of the GDS ( die level, reticle level, outlines, foundry, etc ...).
The 'cheap and dirty' tactic for this is encoding it into the LIBNAME field. This also allows
the string can be viewed with a lightly tweaked 'magic' spec. for the 'file' command ! Eventually
this will have to be supplemented with properties.

I am familiar with the SaveLayoutOptions object for setting the field, and the "Layout Statistics" form
shows the proper string read in, but I could not find an RBA accessor for it. Ideally it would work in
batch ( -b ) mode, and as such might need to be part of a Layout object, or perhaps initialize the Options
objects from the layouts libname, rather than some persistent value from global settings.(??)

Does the Statistics form have access to a piece of MetaInfo that RBA does not?

I noticed that the strm2gdstxt utility also does not convert this field properly.

I am using version 0.24.1 on EL5.

Thanks Much,
Lou

P.S - I simply love Klayout !

Matthias

Hi Lou,

to be frank, the LIBNAME property has not received much attention so far. It's a single (and somewhat limited) property. There is no such feature in OASIS and other formats, so it did not make it into the layout attributes. It's not even preserved in the writing process.

Another problem is that you cannot access the metadata through the RBA interface. Currently you can only configure the string that is written for the LIBNAME.

I tried to address the need for global file properties by adding the layout properties. That is the usual method one uses for OASIS files, but with GDS, there is a certain risk that using layout properties creates a compatibility issue, since not every GDS reader may support the way these properties are written.

I'll try to provide access to the meta data at least in the next minor release.

Thanks for that hint.

Matthias