Making really large arrays of circles

edited October 2013 in Layout
I am trying to make a very large array of small nanometer dots.

The array is 25000 x 25000 dots, so really large. Making an array of dots with either 1 row and 25000 columns or vice versa is no problem.

Maybe not supprisingly it takes forever to render the array from the Edit->Selection->Make Array command. Worse though is that the program stops working after a while (normally at 5%).

I tried to make the circle into a PCell->BASIC.Circle and then make an array with the same result.

So in your opinions, what would be the best way to solve this.

Best regards
/Thomas

PS: I successfully made a line grating with up to 5000 lines in 16 different places without the program stopping. DS.

Comments

  • edited November -1
    Thomas -

    this should not be a problem for klayout at all.

    Make a cell that would contain a circle:

    1. draw it
    2. select it
    3. Edit -> Selection -> make a cell

    Then, instantiate it: Instance (from the tool bar), select cell, array parameters, etc.

    I have just tried it - it works instantaneously.


    One advice - use a minimum number of points to draw a circle (16 or 32 or so) - huge number of points (few thousands, for example), would not make the circle more perfect, in manufacturing (of masks), but would just increase the size of GDS file and slow everything down.

    Max
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  • edited November -1
    Thank you, it worked klike a charm.

    However, how do I add the instance to a specific layer?

    If I make the circle into a PCell instead I can choose a layer for the PCell and then make an array.

    However, when I hide the layer or the cell in the cell list nothing happens. the PCell array or the Cell array is still there.

    And also, the Cell array and the PCell array are all black and not color of any layout.

    How come? If an array is inside a layer it shoudl have that layer's color. (this obviously is not improtant except for viewing).

    Thomas
  • edited November -1
    try to move up in (increase) hierarchy level - do you see your shapes now, and can you change their layer easily?
  • edited November -1
    Hi

    I haven't tried that but I now see the different PCells with its different layer colors. What I needed to do was to Select Full Hierarchy (*) and then all the right colors were shown.

    So it was a user error and not a software error. Thanks for the help.

    Thomas
  • edited November -1
    Hi Tomas -

    I meant exactly that - increasing hierarchy level (in Levels menu, at the bottom of Cells panel, has the same effect as Shift-8 (or Display -> full hierarchy).

    I agree, it's a bit puzzling, not to see what you expect to see...

    Max
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