NAME¶
sim - format of .sim files read by esim, crystal, etc.
DESCRIPTION¶
The simulation tools
crystal(1) and
esim(1) accept a circuit
description in
.sim format. There is a single
.sim file for the
entire circuit, unlike Magic's
ext(5) format in which there is a
.ext file for every cell in a hierarchical design.
A
.sim file consists of a series of lines, each of which begins with a
key letter. The key letter beginning a line determines how the remainder of
the line is interpreted. The following are the list of key letters understood.
- | units: s tech: tech format:
MIT|LBL|SU
- If present, this must be the first line in the .sim
file. It identifies the technology of this circuit as tech and
gives a scale factor for units of linear dimension as s. All linear
dimensions appearing in the .sim file are multiplied by s to
give centimicrons. The format field signifies the sim variant. MIT and SU
are compatible and understood by all tools. LBL is understood only by
gemini(1).
- type g s d l w x y g=gattrs
s=sattrs d=dattrs
- Defines a transistor of type type. Currently,
type may be e or d for NMOS, or p or n
for CMOS. The name of the node to which the gate, source, and drain of the
transistor are connected are given by g, s, and d
respectively. The length and width of the transistor are l and
w. The next two tokens, x and y, are optional. If
present, they give the location of a point inside the gate region of the
transistor. The last three tokens are the attribute lists for the
transistor gate, source, and drain. If no attributes are present for a
particular terminal, the corresponding attribute list may be absent (i.e,
there may be no g= field at all). The attribute lists
gattrs, etc. are comma-separated lists of labels. The label names
should not include any spaces, although some tools can accept label names
with spaces if they are enclosed in double quotes. In version 6.4.5 and
later the default format produced by ext2sim is SU. In this format the
attribute of the gate starting with S_ is the substrate node of the fet.
The attributes of the gate, and source and substrate starting with A_, P_
are the area and perimeter (summed for that node only once) of the source
and drain respectively. This addition to the format is backwards
compatible.
- C n1 n2 cap
- Defines a capacitor between nodes n1 and n2.
The value of the capacitor is cap femtofarads. NOTE: since
many analysis tools compute transistor gate capacitance themselves from
the transistor's area and perimeter, the capacitance between a node and
substrate (GND!) normally does not include the capacitance from transistor
gates connected to that node. If the .sim file was produced by
ext2sim(1), check the technology file that was used to produce the
original .ext files to see whether transistor gate capacitance is
included or excluded; see ``Magic Maintainer's Manual #2: The Technology
File'' for details.
- R node res
- Defines the lumped resistance of node node to be
res ohms. This construct is only interpreted by a few
programs.
- r node1 node2 res
- Defines an explicit resistor between nodes node1 and
node2 of resistance res ohms. This construct is only
interpreted by a few programs.
- N node darea dperim parea pperim marea
mperim
- As an alternative to computed capacitances, some tools
expect the total perimeter and area of the polysilicon, diffusion, and
metal in each node to be reported in the .sim file. The N
construct associates diffusion area darea (in square centimicrons)
and diffusion perimeter dperim (in centimicrons) with node
node, polysilicon area parea and perimeter pperim,
and metal area marea and perimeter mperim. This construct
is technology dependent and obsolete.
- A node attr
- Associates attribute attr for node node. The
string attr should contain no blanks.
- = node1 node2
- Each node in a .sim file is named implicitly by
having it appear in a transistor definition. All node names appearing in a
.sim file are assumed to be distinct. Some tools, such as
esim(1), recognize aliases for node names. The = construct
allows the name node2 to be defined as an alias for the name
node1. Aliases defined by means of this construct may not appear
anywhere else in the .sim file.
SEE ALSO¶
crystal(1), esim(1),
ext2sim(1), sim2spice(1),
ext(5)