* New: In Anabatic & Katana, add the new "drag" feature.
With VH gauges used by real technologies (M1-H, M2-V, M3-H) a new
routing configuration that was not efficiently handled did appear.
While the preferred routing direction for metal1 is officially
horizontal, due to the way the standard cell must be designed,
their metal1 terminals are still verticals (or punctuals).
Thus, when connecting to them, we face the case where the metal1
terminal (RoutingPad) is vertical *and* the metal2 wire is also
vertical. With that setup, the position of the AutoContactTerminal
via12 cannot be deduced, it may range all the way over the
metal1 RoutingPad. What may define it's position is the metal3 the
metal2 finally connects to. That, is, when we have one horizontal
(the metal3) and one vertical (the metal1 RoutingPad).
The intermediate wire of metal2 can be kept to a minimum size
by "dragging" the via12 close to the via23 when the metal3 wire is
moved.
* New: In Anabatic & Katana, problem of closely vertically aligneds
RoutingPads in metal1 is managed first in PreProcess by restricting
the span of the connecteds metal3 and in _makeDogleg also by restricting
the span even more tightly (to the RoutingPad itself).
* New: In Anabatic::AutoContactTerminal, add the "drag" support.
Automatically check if the connecting segment is in the same
direction as the RoutingPad, if so, sets the "SegDrag" flag.
The dragging state can be known with the "::canDrag()" predicate.
* New: In Anabatic::AutoHorizontal, add the "drag" support.
The drag state can be known with the "::isDrag()" predicate.
In "::_makeDogleg()", when making a dogleg on a dragable segment
pass the drag state correctly and restrict the perpandicular span
of the perpandicular to the RoutingPad (though segment user constraints).
If we make a dogleg on the metal2 is it likely than we cannot go
straigth out vertically from the RoutingPad, so the new perpandicular
*is* restricted to the RoutingPad span.
Idem for AutoVertical.
* New: In Katana::Manipulator, add method "::dragMinimize()" which find a
hole where to minimize a draggable segment. We finally did not use it,
but keep it for potential further use.
* New: In Katana::PreProcess, adds a "protectAlignedaccesses()" local
function to check for vertically aligned metal1 RoutingPads, in that
case setup user constraints on the metal3 segments so they cannot
completly cover the other RoutingPad with metal2.
We also keep a "metal2protect()" function that create a fixed segment
to lock/protect a RoutingPad. Not used for now.
* New: In Katana::Session, add a RoutingPad locking event mechanism.
This allows us to request the creation of a locking (fixed segment)
over a draggable segment. Not used for now.
Lock events are processeds before all others as they create new
TrackElements.
* New: In Katana::Track, "::getNextFree()" and "::getPreviousFree()"
method to find the nearest free interval in a Track after/before a
position.
* Bug: In Anabatic::AutoHorizontal::getConstraints(), merge with user
constraints *only* if it's not an empty interval (as we use min/max
functions). Idem for AutoVertical.
* Bug: In AutoSegments_OnContacts::Locator::isValid(), the boolean test
must be inverted. Seems it never worked, but we never used it until
now...
* Bug: In Etesian::setDefaultAb(), the abutment box was miscalculated,
it was always square.
* Bug: In Etesian::_postCreate(), improper loading of filler cells.
Now we first try to find in memory (DataBase::getCell()) and if
not found try to use the AllianceFramework loader.
This is not a clean strategy. We should have something more
clear.
* Change: In Anabatic::GCell::doGrid(), remove the "3 slice height"
limit (for small digital analog blocs).
* Bug: In Anabatic::NetBuilder::setStartHook(), perform a check for
a RoutingPad still on a Plug. Diplay an error instead of crashing.
* Bug: In CRL::RoutingLayerGauge::getTrackIndex(), the upper bound
of the track interval must be included instead of excluded.
* New: In Hurricane::Cell, add a StayOnPlugs flags for flattenNets().
To keep the RoutingPad occurrences on Plug instead of selecting
physical components.
* New: In Isobar::PyNet, add setAutomatic() and isAutomatic() to the
interface.
* Bug: In Katana::protectRoutingPads(), do not create protections on
PinOnly layers (mostly metal1).
* Bug: In Katana::PreProcess::protectCagedTerminals(), the contacts of
the fixed segment must be fixed too.
* Change: In Katana::RoutingPlane constructor, more accurate computation
of the extensionCap (for real technologies).
* Bug: In Katana::DataNegociate::update(), the perpandicular free
interval must be shrunk of the extensionCap of the perpandicular
layer. This problem did show with metal1 "half-offgrid" terminals.
* Change: In Katana::runGlobalRouter(), increase the number of ripup
passes to ten. Display the overloaded edges and the related nets.
* Change: In Anabatic::AutoContactTerminal::getNativeConstraintBox(),
when the anchor is a RoutingPad (which must be always the case),
perform the true computation of it's position based on the
segment occurrence. It is a important change, previously the
area was in fact the "center line" of the connector while now
it is really an area (mandatory for "half-offgrid" terminals of
real technologies).
The change is not complete yet, the area should be shrinked
by the half size of a VIA, because the area applies to the center
coordinate of the VIA (to be done quickly).
* Bug: In Anabatic::AutoContactTurn::updateTopology(), when a dogleg
is created (restore connexity after a layer change) the layer of
the VIA, based on the segments it connects to must be re-computed
*after* the dogleg has been made.
* Change: In all files of Anabatic, when comparing two layers, no longer
use the Layer pointer itself, but the layer mask. This allow a
transparent management of both real and symbolic layers (which
do share the same mask). Real metal layers (not VIAs) will be
BasicLayer and symbolic metal layers will be RegularLayer.
* New: Anabatic::Configuration::selectRpComponent(), select the best
RoutingPad component for metal1 terminals. Look for the metal1
component with the biggest accessibility on-grid.
RoutingPad using other metals are left untoucheds.
* New: New function Anabatic::Vertex::getNeighbor(Edge*) to get the
neighbor Vertex through an Edge*. This method allows to write
clearer code as we no longer need to access the neighbor through
the underlying GCell.
Also add proxies for GCell methods in Vertex.
* Bug: In Anabatic::Dijkstra::_toSources(), in the ripup stage, when
a component with multiples vertexes is reached *and* two of it's
vertexes are reached *at the same time* (one from which we backtrack
and one still in the queue) extraneous edges may be created by
_materialize(). Case occurs on snx/c35b4, "abc_5360_n903_1".
To solve this, Dijkstra::_toSource() is modificated, the "from"
edges of the newly reacheds vertexes are reset to NULL, *except*
for the one we will be backtracking from. That is, the one given
in the source argument.
* Change: In Anabatic::NetBuilder class, put the various Hooks and
RoutingPad sorting functions as class ones.
* Bug: In AutoSegment::setLayer(), raise the SegInvalidatedFayer flag.
This unset flag was causing AutoContactTurn::updateTopology()
to not work as expected and making gaps, this was the cause of
the last remaining warnings about layer connexity.
* Change: In CRL Core, etc/, update the configuration files of real
technologies. Mostly for FreePDK 45. This work is also done for
AMS c35b4 (350nm) but in a private (SoC) git repository.
Added a new parameter 'lefImport.minTerminalwidth' for the
minimum size (width) of a metal1 terminal in standard cells.
Corrected bug of the minimum trace level which must be
initialized to a great value and *not* zero;
* Change: In CRL Core, BlifParser, detect when there is no tie low
or tie high defined, issue an error (connexion left open) but
continue.
* New: In CRL::RoutingLayerGauge, new overlad of getTrackPosition()
with the parameter set of getTrackIndex(). Used to know if a
terminal is on-grid or not.
* New: In CRL::LefImport, smarter management of metal1 pins. Adds a
_pinPostProcess() function to select the external components
among the various shapes. If the gauge is VH, all the pin rectangles
are translateds into vertical segments (even if the metal1 gauge
says the tracks are horizontals).
The _pinPostProcess() function adds as external components of
a net, only the segments of a sufficent width as given in
'lefImport.minTerminalWidth' and that are on-grid.
* Change: In Hurricane::Backtrace constructor, add a boolean parameter
to enable/disable the actual backtrace generation.
* Change: In Hurricane::Error constructor, disable by default the
backtrace generation. The backtrace is useful when the Error is
thrown, and the program therefore stopped. But in many case we
just issue the error message on the console and try to continue.
But if the backtrace is enabled, it terribly slow down the
program.
Have to think about an clean way to re-enable the trace only
when the exception is thrown.
* Change: In Hurricane::Technology, in all the layer connexity methods
(getLayers(), getMetalAbove(), getCutAbove(), getViaBetween(), ...)
the "useWorking" parameter is replaced by a more accurate "useSymbolic".
BEHAVIOR CHANGE: formerly, if a symbolic layer was requested, and
none was found, NULL was returned. Now, if the symbolic layer is not
found, we try to return the associated real one (same layer mask,
but not flagged as symbolic, and usually with a lowercase name).
All thoses changes have been propagated to Python bindings.
* Change: In Hurricane::BasicLayer and derived classes, rename the
"isWorking" attribute into "isSymbolic" (to match the technology
renaming).
* Change: In Hurricane::Cell::flattenNets(), ignore power, ground and
blockage nets for the flatten.
* Change: In CRL Core, in coriolisInit.py and Technology.py helpers,
rename the tables describing the technology as follow:
- symbolicLayersTable --> compositeLayersTable
- workingLayersTable --> symbolicLayersTable
- symbolicRulesTable --> layersExtensionsTable
This is to give the table names a more clearer semantic after
merging real technologies configurations (testbench AMS c35b4).
In particular, we need to define a composite layer for the
real VIAs, and not only the symbolic ones. And with correct
enclosures expressed in real dimensions (microns).
* Bug: In Hurricane the ::tstream class must be initialized with a
minLevel of 10000 instead of zero, as the minLevel go *towards*
zero as the debug slice [min:max[ is expanded by DebugSession.
This default value must be repeated in the CRL::System CTOR
and in the coriolis2/etc/commons/misc.conf.
* Bug: In Hurricane::IntrusiveSet, uses "tsetw(n)" dedicated cdebug
stream manipulator instead of the STL one.
* New: In Anabatic::NetBuilder, set all the attributes as private and
create accessors and mutators.
Finish virtualising all GCell build methods and transfer them
into the NetBuilderHV class.
Build methods now return a boolean to tell if the GCell was
processed or not, to allow cascading in the "big switch".
Reorganise the "big switch" in separate sections only partially
cascading.
Truly fuse the *big switch* for channel routing and over-the-cells.
Create a new method "_do_globalSegment()" to delagate the
drawing of global segments between two GCell to the derived classes.
* New: In Anabatic, rename GCellTopology to NetBuilder, expose the class
(no longer in a local namespace).
NetBuilder become a base class performing the walkthrough the Net
tree. Derived class are tasked to build routing for specific gauge.
NetBuilderHV is created to manage all gauge with metal2 horizontal
and metal3 vertical.
In our terminolgy we consider that the first routing metal is
metal2. Metal1 is used inside the standard cells.
* New: In CRL Core, AllianceFramework::getCell(), adds a new Catalog::State
flags to request the loading of a "foreign" cell. That is, a Cell which
is *not* in the Alliance libraries, but in *any* library starting from
the root library. This is a temporary hack to allow the Blif parser to
run.
* New: In CRL Core, RoutingGauge::getHorizontalGauge() and
RoutingGauge::getVerticalGauge() to avoid relying on either metal names
or depth to know the vertical and horizontal default routing
informations. They return the metal layers gauges *closests* to the
substrate which are likely to have the lesser pitch.
* New: In CRL Core, BlifParser, new configuration parameters:
"etesian.cell.zero" & "etesian.cell.one" to figure out what are the
tielow and tiehigh cells (instead of having the ones from sxlib
hardwired).
* New: In Etesian, add support for non-square routing pitchs, that is,
the lowest vertical and horizontal pitches are not equal. Needs to
work with two pitches (H & V) instead of one.
The Configuration associated class now also provides the
RoutingGauge (not only the CellGauge).
Use a new Configuration setting "etesian.feedNames" to set up
the names of the filler cells. This a string of comma separated
cell names.
* New: In Anabatic, Session::_getNearestGridPoint(), use the new
non-square grid scheme.
* New: In CRL Core, added LEF importer for real technologies. This is
still a work in progress. Exported in Python interface.
* Bug: In CRL Core, CellGauge::getRecord() correctly display DbU
attributes.
* Change: In Unicorn, mofificate ImportCell and ImportCellDialog to
support the LEF importer. Add a template layer so we can work with
loaders returning Cell* or Library*.
* Change: In Unicorn::UnicornGui::getCellFromDb(), in addition to the
Alliance loader, uses the DataBase::getCell() too (for Cells that
are *not* in Alliance).
* Bug: In Kite::NegociateWidow and Katana::NegociateWindow, when creating
the TrackSegment from the AutoSegment, we put it on the nearest track
from its current position. But it may happens that the nearest track
is outside the terminal constraint interval (in the case of "nsxlib").
Add the terminal constraint interval check.
This was not affecting the routing result because the segment was
put inside the right interval afterwards. It was only generating
disgraceful transient error messages...
* Change: In CRL Core, in coriolis2/etc the file an directory structure
describing the technonolies is modified.
Before, one technology was split in two: the symbolic part that
may be shared across multiple real technology and the real technology
itself. To configure this we needed in ".coriolis2/techno.py" two
variables:
* symbolicTechnology.
* realTechnology.
After, we duplicate the symbolic technology in each real ones, so
to configure we only have to refer to one technology with the
variable:
* technology.
Pure sympolic technologies are still availables, associated with
a dummy real one.
We provides:
* 180/scn6m_deep_09 for MOSIS 180nm
* 45/freepdk_45 for FreePDK 45nm (work in progress).
* symbolic/cmos for classical Alliance symbolic.
* Change: In CRL Core python/helpers, SymbolicTechnology.py and
RealTechnology.py are now grouped under Technology.py.
* New: Hurricane::DataBase::getCell() method to search a cell through
all the libraries of *all* the frameworks, not just Alliance.
Also exported in Python interface.
* Bug: In Technology::getNthMetal() the function was not returning the
right metal, there was an offset of one. And when the offset was
0, no metal was even returned. Same fix goes for getNthCut().
The fault was in Mask<>::nthbit().
* Change: In Hurricane::CellWidget, the initial window size is too tiny.
Increase the size from 250 to 500 pixels.
* New: In CRL Core Python helpers, add a "showPythonTrace()" function to
custom display the Python stack trace in case of exception. It ha
been made to look like a gdb trace.
* In Unicorn, cgt.py, use showPythonTrace().
* Bug: In Hurricane::Occurrence_Contains(), when the Instance to match
is set to NULL, that means we have to accept *all* instances instead
of rejecting them all. This bug was making the Cell::flattenedNets()
to do nothing in digital mode.
* New: As, starting from version 5.8, LEF/DEF parser/drivers are
availables under Apache 2.0 license, integrate them inside the
project. Rewrite the Makefiles into CMakeLists.txt, build only
the C++ version. Create an entry for the LEF/DEF doc in the
documentation.
* Change: In documentation/CMakeLists.txt, for add_custom_targets(),
add_dependencies() no longer allow to give files (only others
*target* in the sense of cmake). We must use the DEPENDS option
of add_custom_target().
* Change: In documentation/UsersGuide, it seems that docutils no longer
handle correctly '$' and/or '_' in verbatim in the LaTeX backend.
(i.e. they are *not* escaped, resulting in math mode errors).
Remove those characters as we can use others...
* Commit a snaphot of the current documentation.
* New: In AnabaticEngine::invalidateRoutingPads() this method is a temporary
workaround for a Hurricane problems. When an instance is moved, the
RoutingPads that use it must be moved accordingly, but they are not
invalidated so they stay in the wrong QuadTree.
New method ::_resizeMatrix() to be called when the associated Cell
is resized.
* Bug: In AutoHorizontal::getConstraints() and AutoVertical::getConstraints(),
the *target* constraints where never merged.
* Change: In AutoHorizontal::getCells() and AutoVertical::getGCells(),
now return a boolean to tell if it was ok (must not encounter a NULL
GCell while progessing from source to target).
* New: In Anabatic::Configuration and Anabatic:Session, create new methods:
- getDHorizontalLayer()
- getDhorizontalDepth()
- getDHorizontalWidth()
- getDHorizontalPitch()
And so on for Vertical and Contact.
They supply depth-independant informations about the H/V layers to
build the initial detailed routing.
The AutoSegment::create() methods have been modificated accordingly.
* New: In Anabatic::GCell, add two new types "StdCellRow" and "ChannelRow"
for implementing 2-Metal blocks.
Rename the GCell::setXY() method in GCell::setSouthWestCorner(),
move the contents of GCell::updateContactsPosition() into it and
suppress it.
WARNING: In case of a GCell shrink this may cause problems. But for
now we only expand...
New method GCell::getNetCount() to count the number of Net going
though the GCell.
* Change: In Anabatic::Edge, add specific support for capacity of 2-Metal
routing channels.
* Change: In Anabatic::Dijsktra various methods, replace the "gcell->isMatrix()"
calls by "not gcell->isAnalog()". Add more check so that the methods
pertaining to the analog routing (GRData) are not called in digital
mode.
* New: In Anabatic::Dijkstra::materialize(), add support for 2-Metal specific
cases. That is, always break in case of vertical pass-through or
U-turn. The global routing must always be broken in H-Channel.
* New: In Anabatic::GCell & Anabatic::Edge, make use of the Session mechanism
to ensure the revalidation. The "::revalidate()" method is then moved
as "::materialize()" (overload of Go) and "::_invalidate()" becomes
"::invalidate()"
* Change: In LoadGlobalRouting, cosmetic rename of SortHkByX in SortHookByX.
* New: In GCellTopology, added support for building 2-Metal topologies.
* ForkStack is now an object attribute as many methods do need it.
* To push segments/hook on the stack, a new method "push()" is
available. Perform NULL and fromHook checking. Can also setup
_southWestContact or _northEastContact if it is the "from" edge.
* N/S/E/W edges are now vector as in digital channel mode there
can be more than one.
* Added build topological build methods:
- doRp_2m_Access() RoutingPad stem access.
- _do_2m_1G_1M1() North or south access.
- _do_2m_2G_1M1() North AND south access.
- _do_2m_xG() H-Channel routing.
* New: In Anabatic::Matrix, new ::resize() function, as Cell can be resizeds.
* New: In Anabatic::Vertex, new static method ::getValueString() for a
friendly text rendering.
* New: In Katana::DigitalDistance, support for channel routing.
* Change: In KatanaEngine::digitalSetup() and KatanaEngine::runGlobalrouter(),
for channel routing, calls to setupPowerRails() and
protectRoutingPads() must be called after the core block has
been fully dimensionned.
::runGlobalrouter() contains the code tasked with the grid creation
and channel sizing.
* New: In KatanaEngine: Added support for core block, for 2-Metal routing.
May be expanded for over-the-cell routing in the future.
Added methods :
- isDigitalMode()
- isAnalogMode()
- isMixedMode()
- isChannelMode()
- getBlock() / addBlock()
- setupChannelMode()
- createChannel()
* New: In Katana, new class Block to manage core blocks and perform
channel routing.
* New: In Katana::Session, new convenience method "isOpen()".
* New: In CRL Core, etc/cmos/kite.conf new routing gauge "sxlib-2M" for
two metals only technologies.
* New: In CRL Core, python/helpers/kite.py, new parameter to set the
routing gauge to be used: "kite.routingGauge" (default: "sxlib").
* Change: In CRL/AllianceFramework.cpp, forgot to put the Cell gauges
and RoutingGauges in the object Records (Inspector).
* New: In pyCRL/PyAllianceFramework.cpp, export the setRoutingGauge()
function.
Jean-Paul Chaput
EricLaoGitHub
Roselyne Chotin-Avot