INTRO(10.1) INTRO(10.1)
NAME
intro - circuit design aids
DESCRIPTION
Circuit Design Aids (CDA) is a collection of programs used
for the design and fabrication of electronic circuits. CDA
is composed of programs that communicate through text files.
A thorough introduction to CDA is given in the document
"Circuit Design Aids (CDA) on Plan 9". What follows here is
an abbreviated version.
Schematic entry
Schematics are created with the schematic editor graw(10.1).
There are three varieties of schematic entities: library
shapes (for simple gates), boxes of user defined parts and
wires. The boxes and library shapes contain the symbolic
names of pins which will be turned into pin numbers later
on. The output of graw is an ASCII file in graw(10.6) for-
mat. This must be interpreted by gnet(10.1) to generate a
net list. Net lists are combined into a common net list by
cdmglob(10.1). Cdmglob also expands macros, interprets bus
notation and matches the symbolic pin names in the schemat-
ics with the numeric pin numbers in a "pin file" that gives
the correspondence between symbolic names and numbers in CDL
format.
Programmable Devices
Besides commodity parts like the 7400 series, schematics may
also use programmable devices such as PALs, Actel and Xilinx
parts. CDA contains tools that convert logic equations
written in a language called lde(10.6) format into the vari-
ous formats required to fry the fuses on a programmable
device. Lde format is interpreted by lde(10.1) and gener-
ates "symbolic product terms". Programs called "fitters"
attempt to squeeze lde output into the selected programmable
part. Part(10.1), npart(10.1) and xpart(10.1) are the fit-
ters used for PAL-like devices. Act(10.1) is the fitter for
Actel devices. The output is fed to adil(10.1) which in
turn must be converted by the Actel software. The route to
Xilinx parts is similar. xil(10.1) generates the intermedi-
ate format needed by the Xilinx software.
Physical output
The output of cdmglob(10.1) has no information about the
actual physical construction of the circuit. A separate
design subsystem of CDA known as fizz does the hard work of
generating the information needed to build the circuit.
Cvt(10.1) converts from the CDL output of cdmglob into
fizz(10.6) format. Place(10.1) is a graphical tool that
helps to position parts on the board. It requires a fizz
INTRO(10.1) INTRO(10.1)
description of the packages, net lists and the board.
Finally, given the input to fizz and the output of place (a
position file), wrap(10.1) will generate a wrap file con-
taining the coordinates of all the wires.
File naming conventions
There is a strong convention for naming the files; it is
highly encouraged but not enforced:
.g schematic board description file produced by
graw(10.1).
.w netlist, output from gnet(10.1).
.cdl circuit description language, output from
cdmglob(10.1).
.fx fizz netlist, output from cvt(10.1).
.pos chip position file, output of place(10.1).
.brd board description file including pinholes and special
signal pins.
.pkg package definitions.
.pins
pin definitions for input to cdmglob(10.1)
.lde logic design equations, input to lde(10.1).
.min minterm(10.6) output from lde(10.1), quine(10.1),
cover(10.1), or hazard(10.1).
.adi Actel design intermediate, output from act -a(10.1).
.adl Actel Design Language, used by Actel software.
.xy xymask, the venerable BTL film plotting language.
.wx netlist, output from cdmglob(10.1).
SEE ALSO
A. G. Hume, M. Kahrs, and T. J. Killian, Circuit Design Aids
(CDA) on Plan 9