Magic
Magic is a open source, interactive, very-large-scale
integration (VLSI)
layout tool, written in the 1980's at Berkeley by
John Ousterhout, the creator of the popular scripting
interpreter language Tcl. VLSI design and simulation is the process of
capturing
circuits on a computer workstation with the intention of having them
placed into an Integrated Circuit (IC).
Magic is a popular application with some universities and
smaller companies.
The open source license has allowed VLSI engineers to implement clever
ideas and help magic stay abreast of fabrication
technology. However, it is the well thought-out core algorithms which
lend to magic the greatest part of its popularity.
Magic is widely cited as being the easiest tool to use for
circuit layout, even for people who ultimately rely on
commercial tools for their product design flow. It contains knowledge
about geometrical design rules, transistors, connectivity, and routing.
Magic uses two windows: one for text and a separate window
for displaying layouts.
Features include:
- Uses simplified design rules and circuit structures
- "Corner-stitched" geometry, in which all layout is
represented as a stack of planes, and each plane consists entirely of
"tiles" (rectangles). This provides an efficient implementation of
these operations
- Split tile which allows true representation of
non-Manhattan geometry
- Real-time design rule checking to maintain an up-to-date
picture of violations
- Plowing - permits interactive stretching and compaction
- Routing tools
- Cell manager
- Tech manager
- Read: CIF, GDS
- Write: CIF, GDS
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Last Updated Saturday, October 27 2012 @ 09:27 AM EDT
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