New directory conventions
ChipNDale 25 establishes new object naming conventions that make life easier during tool development. Formerly all legal cells were members of one and only one design directory. It is now possible for cells to exist without membership in some directory, i.e. they may be unnamed. Designers may simply type return when ChipNDale asks for a name when a cell is created. Deletion of all instances of such a cell deletes the cell.
Sisyph
The syntax for satellites and expressions has been changed. The old syntax is still accepted but causes a message of the form *** Old syntax for ... To convert most of the expressions, but not satellites, get to the garbage menu, accessible through the global menu, <space g> and invoke the SisyphConvert command. You must, eventually, convert by hand the satellites or expressions which cause the old syntax message to appear. SisyphDoc defines the new syntax. Reinvoking the SisyphConvert command will cause all unconverted satellites and expressions to be listed.
Sisyph now allows various kinds of wire icons (see doc).
Wells and Transistors
The 7.0 version of Core defines p channel transistors slightly differently from the 6.1 version. They have an additional public wire, called Vdd, which represents the bulk connection of the transistor. The name was chosen to protect the innocent. This change enables the extractor to extract wells as ordinary layers.
ChipNDale Font Specification
A noticeable difference between CD24 and CD25 in the profile is that font profile entries (ChipNDale.CMosB.Fontxx) are ordered the opposite way in CD24 and CD25. In CD24, fonts were displayed by decreasing number in the font pop-up menu and the initial font was the highest-numbered font. In CD25, fonts are presented by increasing number, and the lowest-numbered font is used as a default. DATools7.0/CD25 users should reverse the numbering of fonts in their profile in order to keep the same defaults. Due to an interaction between the Sisyph Create icon From schematics command and the order of the fonts the first font should be ChipNDale.CMosB.Font0: 4 "Xerox/TiogaFonts/Helvetica8".
ChipNDale Interactive user interface
This section repeats a portion of the ChipNDale 25 release message.
Drawing schematics
New chapter in documentation on creation of icons.
[Chapter 6. Usage Hints in ChipNDaleDoc.tioga]
Font size can be changed
In panel: use mouse together with CTRL to scale size.
On selection: use <Y-T-{left|right|CTRL}>, <Y-U-{left|right|CTRL}>.
Control panel has line for texts; used for the text editing commands.
"R" is used as a modifier key, to read data into the control panel:
<R-T-{left|right|CTRL}> read selected text into text field of control panel
<R-F-{left|right|CTRL}> read font of selection into font field of control panel
<R-E-{left|right|CTRL}> use layer of selection as current layer
<R-W-{left|right|CTRL}> read width of selection into width field of current layer
<R-E-W-{left|right|CTRL}> use layer and width of selection to set current layer and width
Wires [only CD.commentLayer] don't disapear if scaled to small [different rounding]
Step move dist "0" will do step moves with the current viewer grid.
<space /> command has a "move selected to grid" option.
</ then "<"> double grid.
</ then ">"> half grid.
Mode switch between layout mode and schematics mode [CMos-B only]
<A-S> => Schematcs mode
<Q-W> => Layout mode
Small general command cleanup
Better error behaviour in case separately loaded commands fail. Additional loaded commands allow denial to execute [saves gfi's on browse trips]
Satellites commands changed to be easier to understand, at cost of sometimes more usage of menu.
About 4 menus and 10 commands withdrawn [I believe nobody used those].
Step moves do not feedback in Terminal viewer.
Control panel has multiple layer lines; switch by hitting the "current layer" field.
Directory commands
Rename object (without using mouse): <CTRL-N>.
New command: Search object by name.
Push in by name, draw, replace, and search commands do also work with an adress instead of the name of the object; this implicitely allows to replace texts.
List, or, prune directory commands can have patterns. Pattern field in panel.
Related packages
PD-plot and interpress-plot can plot just the selection
Tip tables are no more reinstalled on user profile changes but only with the command tool command "CDReInstallTipTables".
Font substitution compensates different rope bounding box sizes on flip texts.
The debug command can be issued even while the design is locked.
Colors
New colormaps module offering all Cedar choices, and, swapping cursor representation mode.
Colors for splines, polygons and text overlap correctly on 8 bit per pixel displays, at least for the layers not using stipples.
Use the command tool commands to put the right colors into a checkpoint.