DW Layout Editor

Flexibility: Tailoring to Your Preferences

At the core of DW is the commitment to flexibility, designed to cater to the diverse preferences and styles of power users like you. It offers a highly customizable graphical user interface, allowing you to tweak menus, toolbars, shortcut keys, and even craft new dialog boxes from scratch. This customization extends to a robust programming environment provided by DW, enabling almost limitless functionality within the user interface. 

Automation: Enhancing Productivity Through Technology

In the fast-paced world of design, increasing productivity while maintaining quality is paramount. DW introduces automation as a key feature to meet these demands. Through its advanced programming capabilities, you can automate virtually any aspect of your work. The tool supports a powerful PCell concept, allowing you to define and rapidly generate design elements with simple parameterization. Whether you input data via the user interface or a script, the system instantaneously creates a device, with ongoing flexibility to adjust parameters as needed. This integration of PCells with DW’s Graphical Programming Environment (GPE) transforms the automation process, making it a practical reality for enhancing your design productivity.

Integration: Seamless Collaboration within Design Tools

In advanced design flows, seamless tool integration underpins efficiency. DW ensures a seamless interaction among all its modules through the comprehensive access provided by the GPE, fostering unmatched interoperability. Features include the HLVS module, which can extract circuit representations and emphasize specific nets and devices in layouts. Additionally, the DRC integrates with the Layout Editor to streamline error checking and navigation. 

Extendibility: Custom Solutions for Unique Challenges

When standard tools fall short in addressing specific design challenges, DW’s extendibility allows you to enhance its capabilities to meet your unique requirements. The GPE of DW enables users to modify existing modules or develop new functionalities, tailored to your specific design methodologies. This flexibility has led to innovations by users, extending DW in ways previously unimagined. 

Modularity: Tailored Tool Selection

When you only need certain tools, DW’s modular design has your back. Pick exactly what fits your goals go all-in with the full suite or grab standalone pieces like the Layout Editor, Verification Tools, Data Conversion or productivity modules. Each module nails its own task and plays perfectly with the rest, keeping your workflow smooth and cutting out any duplicate work.

The DW Layout Editor (DW) is a high-performance layout design tool engineered for the efficient development of complex and highly customized designs. Built with advanced layout generation and editing capabilities, it enables precise physical implementation. Its robust feature set including constraint-driven design, hierarchical editing, and integration with verification workflows ensures maximum productivity and design accuracy across even the most demanding projects. 

Core Features of DW Layout Editor

• Fully Integrated System: Combines Extraction, LVS, DRC, and advanced layout editing in one seamless environment.
• Customizable Interface: Users can adjust the tool according to their needs, enhancing the ease of use and reducing the learning curve.
• Advanced Boolean Engine: Supports complex operations on all angle geometries, ensuring designs are ready for manufacturing.
• Hierarchical Database: Manages large volumes of geometrical data efficiently, supporting extensive editing features for hierarchical designs.
• GPE syntax coloring using Visual Studio Code integrated GPE extension to enhance your efficiency while developing your IP.
• Seamless data exchange: Enables inter-process communication with MS Excel and other applications for easy, two-way data transfer.

Key Capabilities

• Native GDSII Support: Ensures designs are manufactured correctly without additional conversion steps, saving time and minimizing the risk of errors. 
• Multi-Mode Data Entry: Combine various digitizing modes to create complex shapes with greater flexibility and precision in layout design.
• Recursive Command Structure: Boosts productivity by enabling nested or stacked commands, streamlining workflows to align with the designer’s process.
• PCell Automation:  Optimizes layout creation by automatically generating device layouts based on user-defined parameters.
• Multithreaded Performance Boost: Leverages CPU multithreading to accelerate operations, delivering faster and more efficient processing.

Editing Features

• Edit-in-Place and Multi-Context Editing: Facilitates easy navigation and editing within complex hierarchical structures, allowing simultaneous editing across multiple contexts.
• Instant measurement display: Quickly view vertical and horizontal distances between elements at the cursor position for faster, more efficient layout work.
• Performance and Accessibility: Quick data access and performance are maintained across platforms, with the system optimized for both imperial and metric units.
• Customization Options: Users can modify menus, toolbars, and shortcut keys, tailoring the interface to their preferences using the GPE scripting language.
• GPE is a powerful scripting language used to automate tasks, develop XDRC, HLVS scripts and used to fully customize any aspects of the interface. More features available under the GPE tab.

Design Efficiency and Quality

• Automatic Layer Generation: Reduces manual input and human error by automatically creating necessary fabrication layers from design models.
• Extensive Command Library: Offers a wide range of commands and mathematical operations for precise layout creation, supported by a robust scripting environment.

The Graphics Programming Environment (GPE) is pivotal to all DW modules since it is used within our product architecture to link every aspect of DW. Many Layout Editor commands are, in fact, assemblies of basic GPE commands. This modular approach benefits users by allowing them to assemble GPE commands to easily create custom commands, enhancing physical layout and verification processes. These commands can be invoked by typing them or by installing them into the application menus or toolbars. In design phases that require repetitive editing, it is often faster and more convenient to write and execute a program consisting of a series of GPE commands, rather than manually repeating the operations.

The GPE was designed to perform powerful tasks while minimizing the amount of code writing needed to create such programs. For applications requiring deeper control, an optional module enables the integration of PCells as well as custom Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). Programs created with the GPE can also be saved as objects, protecting the associated Intellectual Property (IP).

Editor and Compiler

Working with the GPE involves writing program scripts. A built-in text editor is supplied with DW and optionally you can use external text editor such as Visual Studio Code which includes a GPE extension which show syntax with and documents for all GPE commands. The GPE programs are then compiled, meaning that once they are loaded, the original text is no longer needed. Instead, objects (chunks of binary code) are generated and can be either saved or executed. DW supplies a browser to manage the various GPE programs, facilitating the use of structure editors and enhancing the efficiency of layout verification.

Command Line Interpreter

Another important aspect of the GPE is its ability to interpret typed command lines. A command line can be the name of a GPE or user command, or it can be a full expression. This flexibility allows for advanced layout verification and manipulation through efficient scripting.

Run-Time Library

Programs written in the GPE can be made with an infinite number of combinations. These programs can range from simple sequences of commands to complex constructions involving decisions, calculations, and user interaction. The GPE supplies a rich collection of run-time elements, varying from data query commands to database manipulations. Each supplementary module, such as XDRC and HLVS, supplies its own set of run-time executable elements. This ensures that the environment used to create a simple Layout Editor macro can also support complex DRC verification scripts or layout extraction.

Dialog Module Interface

The Dialog Module interface is a collection of GPE commands that allows you to create GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) from GPE programs. You can create both modal and modeless windows, and each interface window can support buttons, lists, editable and static text fields, pull-down menus, etc. Like other GPE programs, those containing dialogs can be installed in DW menus or remain resident until called by the user or another GPE program.

GPE Features:

• Application-level programming
• IP protection
• Rich run-time library
• Integrated editor, compiler
• GPE extension integrated in Visual Studio Code
• Command Line interpreter
• Access to every part of DW

DW Modules: Unlock Advanced Layout Capabilities

DW Modules are your key to powerful features that streamline layout verification, validation, automation, and manufacturing, boosting productivity at every stage. Seamlessly integrated across the application, these modules are fully accessible through the GPE, offering unmatched interoperability. It’s an elegant, efficient solution for handling the back-end tools essential to layout creation

Verification modules

• Design Rule Check (DRC)
• Advanced Design Rule Check (XDRC)
• HLVS: Extraction & Layout vs. Schematic (LVS)

Data Conversion

• AutoCAD Conversion & GDSII Validation
• Data Conversion for Manufacturing (DCM)
• Custom Conversion Services

Productivity modules

• PCell Developer Kit
• Die Serialization
• Photonics Element Library

Miscellaneous

• Cross-Section viewer

Minimum Requirements and License types

• Operating system: Microsoft Windows 10 or newer on a Windows-based PC.
• 16 GB RAM while 32 GB is recommended for large design and for using DRC, XDRC, and HLVS modules.
• 400 MB of disk space. 
• Any video card that is compatible with Microsoft’s DirectX.
• Available in node lock and network licenses. Licensing is managed using FlexNet Publisher (formerly known as FlexLM).
• Network license service can be hosted on physical or Virtual servers running Windows OS.

Brochures

• DW Layout Editor
• DW Optional Modules
• Verification and Analysis
• Design Rule Verification (XDRC)
• HLVS
• Manufacturing
• Intellectual Property
• Microwave Design
• Photonics Element Library
• Services

White Papers

• Manufacturing Techniques for Optical Components

Other:

• EULA