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The File Menu |
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This menu allows you to manipulate libraries of cells, which are typically read and written at one time. Besides basic library manipulation, this menu permits the reading and writing of libraries in various formats including CIF (Caltech Intermediate Format), GDS II (Calma's stream format), EDIF (the Electronic Design Interchange Format), and PostScript (a popular printer interface format).
This command creates a new library with no facets. It becomes the current library. Use the Edit facet command from the Facets menu to create circuitry.
This command reads a library of facets from disk. A dialog helps you select the file. Multiple libraries may be in memory at one time.
These commands allows a library to be read in a foreign interchange format. The possible file formats are shown in the submenu. For CIF, GDS II, and DXF, design-rule checking is disabled in order to avoid the inevitable errors that exist in the unconnected geometry. | ![]() |
CIF | This command reads a CIF file from disk and creates a new library to contain the circuitry. Note that CIF contains no connectivity information, so the new library will have only polygonal information and no topology. To determine the CIF layer names that will correspond to those in the current technology, use the IO Correspondences command from the Technology menu. |
GDS II | This command reads a GDS II file from disk and creates a new library to contain the circuitry. Note that GDS contains no connectivity information, so the new library will have only polygonal information and no topology. To determine the GDS layer numbers that will correspond to those in the current technology, use the IO Correspondences command from the Technology menu. |
VHDL | This command reads a VHDL file from disk and creates a new library to contain the circuitry. |
DXF | This command reads an AutoCAD DXF file from disk and creates a new library to contain the layout. Note that DXF contains no connectivity information, so the new library will have only polygonal information and no topology. To determine the DXF layer numbers that will correspond to those in the current technology, use the IO Correspondences command from the Technology menu. |
Readable Dump | Readable Dump files contain all of the information in an Electric library, except that they are ASCII (readable). This command reads such a file, allowing libraries to easily transport from other computers. |
This command deletes the current library. Since there must always be a library, this operation will not work if only one exists.
This command writes the current library to disk. Changes become permanent at this point.
This command allows the current library to be renamed before being written to disk. Both the library and the disk file are renamed.
These commands write all or part of the current library to disk in a foreign interchange format. The possible formats are shown in the submenu. | ![]() |
CIF | This command writes a CIF (Caltech Intermediate Format) description of the current facet to disk. The description includes everything below it in the hierarchy. To determine the CIF layer names that will be used, use the IO Correspondences command from the Technology menu. |
GDS II | This command writes a Calma GDS II description of the current facet to disk. The description includes everything below it in the hierarchy. To determine the GDS layer numbers that will be used, use the IO Correspondences command from the Technology menu. |
DXF | This command writes an AutoCAD DXF description of the current facet to disk. The description includes everything below it in the hierarchy. It contains geometry only, and no connectivity. |
L | This command writes a description of the current facet in the "L" language, readable by GDT design tools. |
PostScript | This command writes a description of the current facet in the "PostScript" language, a graphics format usable by many printers |
HPGL | This command writes a description of the current facet in the "HPGL" language, a graphics format usable by many printers. |
Readable Dump | This command writes the current library in an ASCII format that can be ported to other computers and still read into Electric. |
This command selects an existing library as the current one. It must have been read from disk.
This command causes the current facet to be printed. On UNIX systems, a PostScript file is created. Another way to print is to use the Write PostScript and Write HPGL options of the Export command above.
This command provides a number of options for printing, including encapsulation (for PostScript), date inclusion (PostScript and HPGL), scale setting (HPGL/2 only), and a determination of whether the entire facet is to be printed or just the highlighted area. The highlighted area is defined as the bounding rectangle of everything that is highlighted. A more precise way of defining a highlighted area is to use the rectangle select button. | ![]() |
This command exits Electric. If libraries have been changed but not written to disk, you will be prompted to make sure that you want to exit the program.
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