1986 VLSI Tools: Still More Works by the Original Artists

Walter S. Scott, Robert N. Mayo, Gordon Hamachi and John K. Ousterhout

EECS Department
University of California, Berkeley
Technical Report No. UCB/CSD-86-272
December 1985

http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1986/CSD-86-272.pdf

This manual describes the programs in the 1986 VLSI Tools Distribution put together by the CS Division of the Department of EECS, University of California, Berkeley. The distribution consists of about twenty programs for designing and analyzing VLSI circuits. The programs were designed to run on both VAXes under the Berkeley 4.3 distribution of Unix, and Suns under their Berkeley 4.2 distribution of Unix. They are available to the public on an internal-use-only basis.

Highlights: This distribution contains mostly the same programs as our previous distribution. The main change is in the Magic program, which has undergone major revisions. In addition, there are a few new programs. Here's an overview of some of the major tools:

Crystal A timing analyzer that helps the designer find performance problems in his design.

Eqntott Converts a set of logic equations into a truth table format for input to our PLA optimization and layout tools.

Esim An event driven logic-level simulator developed at MIT and distributed with their permission. The version on this tape handles CMOS as well as nMOS.

Espresso A fast new boolean equation minimizer.

Ext2sim Part of the Magic suite of programs. Used for converting the output of Magic's hierarchical extractor into a form usable by other tools on this tape, such as Esim and Crystal.

Magic The second release of our graphical layout editor. Magic has undergone many major changes since the 1985 distribution; they are described in a section below.

Mpack A new release of the tpack library for generating semi-regular modules. This version is compatible with Magic layout files. These routines allow module generators to generate layouts by assembling tiles (which are small chunks of layout designed with Magic). The end result is a module generator that can generate different styles of modules depending upon what set of tiles is used.

Mpanda A technology-independent generator of split and folded PLAs built using Mpack. Used in conjunction with Pleasure.

Mpla A technology-independent generator of ordinary PLAs built using Mpack.

Mquilt A generator of personalized arrays built using Mpack.

Peg A tool that compiles a high-level description of a finite state machine into logic equations. These logic equations can be fed into the PLA tools for automatic layout and optimization of the FSM.

Pleasure Minimizes the area of a PLA by splitting and folding its and and or planes. Used in conjunction with Panda.

Several of the programs on this tape were developed by authors outside of the Computer Science Division. We wish to thank Prof. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli of Electrical Engineering and his students for allowing us to distribute their PLA optimization tools Espresso and Pleasure. Panda and Eqntott were developed by Prof. Richard Newton and his students, also in Electrical Engineering. Esim, the switch-level simulator, was developed by Prof. Chris Terman of MIT. Several programs are being distributed courtesy of Prof. Chuck Seitz of Caltech: Cifp, by Chris Kingsley, Maglot, by Wen-King Su, and Plamin by Don Speck. Finally, Shih-Lien Lu of MOSIS-ISI provided the SOS and SCMOS technology files for Magic. We are grateful for the authors' permission to distribute these tools.

BibTeX citation:

@techreport{Scott:CSD-86-272,
    Author = {Scott, Walter S. and Mayo, Robert N. and Hamachi, Gordon and Ousterhout, John K.},
    Title = {1986 VLSI Tools: Still More Works by the Original Artists},
    Institution = {EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley},
    Year = {1985},
    Month = {Dec},
    URL = {http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1985/6084.html},
    Number = {UCB/CSD-86-272},
    Abstract = {This manual describes the programs in the 1986 VLSI Tools Distribution put together by the CS Division of the Department of EECS, University of California, Berkeley. The distribution consists of about twenty programs for designing and analyzing VLSI circuits. The programs were designed to run on both VAXes under the Berkeley 4.3 distribution of Unix, and Suns under their Berkeley 4.2 distribution of Unix. They are available to the public on an internal-use-only basis.  <p><b>Highlights:</b> This distribution contains mostly the same programs as our previous distribution. The main change is in the Magic program, which has undergone major revisions. In addition, there are a few new programs. Here's an overview of some of the major tools:   <p><b>Crystal</b> A timing analyzer that helps the designer find performance problems in his design.  <p><b>Eqntott</b> Converts a set of logic equations into a truth table format for input to our PLA optimization and layout tools.  <p><b>Esim</b> An event driven logic-level simulator developed at MIT and distributed with their permission. The version on this tape handles CMOS as well as nMOS.  <p><b>Espresso</b> A fast new boolean equation minimizer.  <p><b>Ext2sim</b> Part of the Magic suite of programs. Used for converting the output of Magic's hierarchical extractor into a form usable by other tools on this tape, such as Esim and Crystal. <p><b>Magic</b> The second release of our graphical layout editor. Magic has undergone many major changes since the 1985 distribution; they are described in a section below.  <p><b>Mpack A</b> new release of the <i>tpack</i> library for generating semi-regular modules.  This version is compatible with Magic layout files. These routines allow module generators to generate layouts by assembling tiles (which are small chunks of layout designed with Magic). The end result is a module generator that can generate different styles of modules depending upon what set of tiles is used.  <p><b>Mpanda</b> A technology-independent generator of split and folded PLAs built using Mpack.  Used in conjunction with Pleasure.  <p><b>Mpla</b> A technology-independent generator of ordinary PLAs built using Mpack.  <p><b>Mquilt</b> A generator of personalized arrays built using Mpack.  <p><b>Peg</b> A tool that compiles a high-level description of a finite state machine into logic equations. These logic equations can be fed into the PLA tools for automatic layout and optimization of the FSM.  <p><b>Pleasure</b> Minimizes the area of a PLA by splitting and folding its <b>and</b> and <b>or</b> planes. Used in conjunction with Panda.  <p>Several of the programs on this tape were developed by authors outside of the Computer Science Division.  We wish to thank Prof. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli of Electrical Engineering and his students for allowing us to distribute their PLA optimization tools Espresso and Pleasure.  Panda and Eqntott were developed by Prof. Richard Newton and his students, also in Electrical Engineering. Esim, the switch-level simulator, was developed by Prof. Chris Terman of MIT.  Several programs are being distributed courtesy of Prof. Chuck Seitz of Caltech: Cifp, by Chris Kingsley, Maglot, by Wen-King Su, and Plamin by Don Speck. Finally, Shih-Lien Lu of MOSIS-ISI provided the SOS and SCMOS technology files for Magic. We are grateful for the authors' permission to distribute these tools.}
}

EndNote citation:

%0 Report
%A Scott, Walter S.
%A Mayo, Robert N.
%A Hamachi, Gordon
%A Ousterhout, John K.
%T 1986 VLSI Tools: Still More Works by the Original Artists
%I EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley
%D 1985
%@ UCB/CSD-86-272
%U http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1985/6084.html
%F Scott:CSD-86-272