Differences

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--- tools:start [2023/04/07 12:54] – [Expanded names] rajit
+++ tools:start [2024/07/24 18:07] (current) – [Tools] rajit
@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
    * [[prs2sim|prs2sim]]: a production rule to sim file converter
    * [[ext2sp|ext2sp]]: converts magic extract files into a hierarchical spice file
+   * [[tools:layout:|Layout generation]]
    * [[lvp|lvp]]: layout versus production rules
+   * [[act2lef|act2lef]]: Generate LEF/DEF from an ACT design
+   * [[act2v|act2v]]: Convert ACT file into a Verilog netlist
+   * [[adepend|adepend]]: Print dependencies of an ACT file
+   * [[chp2prs|chp2prs]]: convert CHP to production rules
+   * [[interact|interact]]: Interactive ACT
+   * [[prs2cells|prs2cells]]: extract ACT cells needed to implement a design
+   * [[v2act|v2act]]: Translate a Verilog netlist into an ACT file
+   * [[asic:timing:xcell:start|xcell]]: Cell library characterizer
 These are core ACT tools--i.e. tools that use the core ACT library and take ACT files as input. They also accept the standard ACT [[:stdoptions:start|command-line arguments]], in addition to their own arguments. The standard ACT options include ways to specify technology-specific information, as well as local configuration overrides.
@@ Line 22: / Line 31: @@
    * [[http://opencircuitdesign.com/magic/index.html|magic]]: The Magic VLSI layout editor
    * [[http://opencircuitdesign.com/irsim/index.html|irsim]]: A switch-level circuit simulator
-   * Gemini: a netlist comparison for strict layout-versus-schematic checking {{:tools:gemini-2.7.2.tar.gz|Gemini}}
+   * Layout versus schematic (LVS) checking:
+      * Gemini: a netlist comparison for strict layout-versus-schematic checking {{:tools:gemini-2.7.2.tar.gz|Gemini}}
+      * [[http://opencircuitdesign.com/netgen/index.html|netgen]]: another tool for LVS
+Two useful concepts to keep in mind when using the ACT tools are //expanded names// and //mangled names//.
 ===== Expanded names =====
@@ Line 37: / Line 49: @@
 If the template list contains multi-dimensional arrays, the expanded name contains a linear list of the parameters separated by commas.
+===== Mangled names =====
+Expanded ACT type names can contain characters like ''<'','' >'', and '','' (among others). Instances can have names like ''a[3].b[5].z'', including the characters ''['', '']'', and ''.''. When exporting an ACT design to another format for use by a third-party tool, names with such characters in them can be potentially problematic. A good example of this is when exporting a SPICE netlist---different versions of SPICE have different syntactic restrictions. To handle this in a disciplined manner, the ACT library has the notion of a //mangled// name. A mangled name is generated by re-writing a user-specified list of special characters with an underscore and a number/character combination. This mapping is invertible, so a name can be unmangled as well. The set of characters to be mangled is specified in the ACT configuration option ''act.mangle_string'' (usually found in the global configuration file ''global.conf'').
+The standard name mangling prefix character is an underscore. Name mangling operates character-by-character as follows:
+   *  An underscore is replaced by two underscores.
+   * A character that is not in the mangle string is a pass-through, so it is not modified.
+   * If a character is at position k in the name mangling string, it is replaced with an underscore followed by k. The position character is 0 to 9 for positions 0 to 9, followed by a-z. Up to 36 characters can be mangled.
+Name mangling can at most double the length of the string.
+Process names have a special case in terms of name mangling. If an expanded process has no parameters, its mangled name is obtained simply be omitting the trailing ''<>''. This is to make the output more readable when templates are not being used.