DEF reader & viewing capability

edited May 2012 in File Formats
Hi Matthias
I have been using klayout for gds editing, it's a great tool.

Does klayout have a feature to read in and view/edit DEF files? I saw the following script, but looked like it is for only standard cell LEF files

http://www.klayout.de/useful_scripts.html#LEF.rbm

Thanks
David

Comments

  • edited November -1

    Hi David,

    that is probably possible, but I am lacking a couple of things. The problem is that LEF/DEF is mainly used within a private circle of semicustom flow tools. I have not found a comprehensible or reliable documentation of that format, neither have I - except some very simple LEF files for outdated public libraries - found any reference test cases which are publicly available and could serve as a basis for development.

    Si2 appears to have some activity related to LEF/DEF, but frankly I will not spend money to join their club and using proprietary information for open source development always raises nasty legal questions.

    Maybe you can point me to some publicly available documentation. If in addition somebody was able to provide some non-trivial test cases, that would be a good starting point. So far I was not able to find anything useful in the public domain.

    Regards,

    Matthias

  • edited November -1
    Hi Matthias
    Timberwolf (placer) & Qrouter are open source and can read/write DEF syntax. Magic also support DEF reading capability. Will the source code help you?

    http://opencircuitdesign.com/verilog/index.html

    Thanks
    David
  • edited November -1

    Hi David,

    thanks for the hint. I know of some more implementations myself, but having an implementation is not the same than having a documentation. I made some bad experience with the empirical approach with DXF and I don't want to repeat that.

    And still, I don't have any more than trivial test cases. I understand that LEF/DEF raises a lot of open questions, for example having to support net information, which is somewhat beyond the scope of KLayout currently. While GDS/OASIS is my daily business, LEF/DEF is not and I don't have access to tools or sample cases which support that. So I would need a lot more support than for plain layout formats.

    Regards,

    Matthias

Sign In or Register to comment.