drc

Usage:

drc option

where option is one of the following:

catchup

Run checker and wait for it to complete

check

Recheck area under box in all cells

count [total]

Count error tiles in each cell under box. Option total returns the total number of DRC error tiles in the cell.

euclidean on|off

Enable/disable Euclidean geometry checking

find [nth]

Locate next (or nth) error in current cell

help

Print help information

off

Turn off background checker

on

Reenable background checker

status

Report whether the background checker is on or off.

printrules [file]

Print out design rules in file or to stdout

rulestats

Print out statistics about design rule database

statistics

Print out statistics gathered by checker

why

Print out reasons for errors under box

*halo [value]

Without option value, prints out the DRC halo distance, which is the largest distance at which a DRC interaction can occur outside of any area to be checked. Becuase large DRC haloes can cause very long delays in the interactive DRC checks, it can be helpful to use value to force a smaller halo. This causes certain DRC errors to be missed, but allows all the basic short-distance design rules to be checked without undue processing delays.

*stepsize [value]

The step size is the length of a side of the area into which the DRC checker routine breaks up larger areas for more efficient processing. Changing this value can greatly effect the speed of the DRC checker, although it is difficult to predict what step size is "optimal". Without option value, returns the current value of the step size.

Summary:

The drc command controls the behavior of magic's "background" design rule checker. Normally the design rule checker is invoked whenever the design is changed and checks all parts of the design close to the changed area that might have been affected by the change. The design rule checker flags areas that have been checked as it runs. It starts whenever a layout change has been made or after any command has been executed if areas of the layout still need to be checked. Any macro keystroke in the layout window or command executed on the command line will interrupt the design rule checker pending completion of the action, at which time the design rule checker will be reactivated.

The drc on and drc off options are the main controls for starting and stopping the design rule checker. drc status returns the status of the background checker, either "on" or "off". The Tcl version of magic returns a boolean value (0 or 1).

The drc check option marks all areas of the layout under the box as requiring a check and restarts the design rule checker.

The drc why and drc find commands can be used to query errors in the layout discovered by the design rule checker. drc why reports the reason for all error regions found inside the magic cursor box. The drc find command can be used to find errors that may not be visible inside the current window view, or that may be difficult to find on a large layout.

The drc euclidean on command can be useful in cases where vendor design rules intend a Euclidean distance metric (minimum linear distance) rather than a Manhattan distance metric (minimum distance in either the x or y direction, evaluated separately). The default option is "off", as most vendor rules and design rule checkers assume Manhattan distances when checking rules.

The remaining options are relativly obscure and unlikely to be useful to the typical end-user.

Implementation Notes:

drc is implemented as a built-in magic command.

Return to command index

Last updated: December 4, 2005 at 5:39pm