Glade Reference Manual

Glade Reference

Introduction

Glade (Gds, Lef And Def Editor) is a freeware IC layout editor capable of reading GDS2, OASIS, LEF and DEF. It can load and display large design databases with its fast, lightweight object-oriented database - for example load a 677,000 net / 482,000 special net / 1,210,000 instance DEF design in 880Mb memory in 72 seconds on a 3GHz PC. Or load a 270Mb GDS2 file in 5 seconds. Glade uses the Qt cross-platform GUI toolkit, and uses OpenGL for graphics when available to give superior display speeds, falling back to software rendering only if you do not have suitable hardware. Glade is currently ported to Windows, Linux and Solaris, so unlike most commercial IC viewer/ editors it will run on your PC laptop. Glade is extendable using Python scripting, allowing access to the database and gui via SWIG wrapping of C++ functions.

Features include:

Fast, hardware accelerated OpenGL graphics - e.g. 100,000 instance / 100,000 net design redrawn in under 0.1 seconds!
Import GDS2, OASIS, DXF, LEF, DEF, Verilog, EDIF and CDL
Export GDS2, OASIS, DXF, LEF, DEF, Verilog, EDIF and CDL
Import Cadence display.drf / techfiles directly
Import Silicon Canvas Laker display.dsp / techfiles directly
Load/Save imported libraries in compact binary format
Save/Discard edits
Screen dump in PNG or JPEG image format
Print screen to printer
Window fit, pan, pan to point, zoom, zoom selected, redraw
Edit and display hierarchy from 0 to an unlimited number of levels
Edit in place with editable cell data shown bright against a dimmed background
Descend/Ascend hierarchy
Flatten and create new cell commands
Create instance, label, rectangle, path, polygon, via, pin commands with interactive display during enter
Automatic path shielding
Interactive & permanent rulers (90/45/any angle) with no limit on the number of rulers drawn
Cursor box (like Virtuoso) or crosswire snaps to nearest object within specified distance and hierarchy level(s) and/or grid
Dynamic highlighting of selectable objects
Layer select window for setting layer visibility/selectability, current layer, choosing layer colour and transparency, fill pattern, line style/width and setting layer names.
Layers, colours, fill patterns etc. easily set up graphically including system colours like background colour, grids, axes etc
Powerful selection and querying commands (full / by edge / by vertex)
Select whole nets (i.e. all net shapes) or just single objects
Dim unselected items with variable dimming
All database objects can have any number of user-defined properties
Move, Copy, Delete, Rotate selected objects
Stretch edges or vertices, add vertex to polygon
Convert shapes to polygons.
Reshape polygons.
Boolean operations - AND, OR, NOT, XOR, merge (single layer OR), sizing, selection, convert to trapezoids etc.
Compare two designs using tile-based boolean XOR on one or all layers, flat or hierarchical.
Merge selected shapes
Chop a rectangle from a shape
Align objects by bounding box or by layer
Sizing and biassing of design data.
Search for instance, cell, net or labels.
Highlight nets either as shapes, minimum spanning tree or Steiner tree.
Create Floorplan command to initialise design size and create rows for cell placement
Create Rows, Groups and Regions
Place standard cells using the Capo placer
Global routing for congestion analysis
Import design ECO's
Add/Delete filler (or in fact any type of ) cells
Replace views (e.g. switch abstract views for layout views prior to exporting GDS2)
Browse library with open/delete/rename/copy cells
Design hierarchy browser allows fast design navigation
Online HTML help
User definable bindkeys
Python scripting language with full ui and database access.
Parameterised Cells (PCells) implemented using Python scripting.
Fast DRC checking with interactive error viewer
Fast and powerful connectivity and device extraction.
LVS using Gemini engine to compare extracted netlists vs. Spice/CDL netlists
Read Calibre or Hercules error results to step through and fix errors
Switchable Tab or MDI style window mode
User programmable menus and bindkeys
Net tracing from shapes or text labels
DEF short tracer

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