The Run Page

The Run page contains controls for running the supported programs, or creating unified list format input files for these programs. This is the default page, shown when the panel appears.

Run in foreground
At the top of the page is the Run in foreground check box. When checked, the program will run synchronously in the foreground, rather than asynchronously in the background. Aside from possibly being helpful when debugging problems, it is not clear that this mode has any value.

This check box sets, and is set by, the FcForeg variable.

Out to console
When the Out to console check box is checked, the program output will be printed in the console window, i.e., the shell window from which Xic is running. This is most useful with FasterCap, which iterates to a solution, and the user can verify that all is well by watching this output.

This check box sets, and is set by, the FcMonitor variable.

Show Numbers
When the interface is run to produce an input file, the mutually connected conducting shapes are identified, and each disjoint group is assigned a conductor number. These numbers are used in the input list file to specify the conductors, and in the output file to identify the capacitance matrix indices.

When this check box is checked, the conductor numbers will be shown on-screen, so that the user can easily determine the conductor numbers associated with the layout objects. Each number is shown as a cross-mark, which will appear at a corner of an object in the conductor group. The conductor number, and the layer name of the associated object, are printed next to the cross-mark.

Note that due to the possibility of clipping by an FCAP layer, objects that are connected in the cell may be disconnected when used in the interface. In that case, two or more marks may appear over the same object, or different objects that are touching. If this is confusing, one can use the Layer Expression panel from the Edit Menu to create temporary layers for visualization, consisting of the conducting layers anded with the FCAP layer. The resulting shapes will have unique conductor number marks.

Run File
This button and adjacent text entry allows an arbitrary input file to be run by the capacitance extraction program currently configured. The text area should contain a path to a valid input file for the configured program. The program will run, and results will appear, as for a normal extraction run.

Run Extraction
This button will dump a temporary input file, run the program, and display the results. The result file is named cellname-pid.fc_log, where cellname is the name of the current cell, and pid is the process id of the spawned process used to run the program. The file contains listings of the input file produced by the interface and the output file produced by the program.

By default, the program is run in the background. The label at the bottom of the panel will indicate that the job is running. When complete, a File Browser window containing the result file will appear. While jobs are running in the background, one can continue using Xic.

If the FcForeg variable is set, from the Run in foreground check box or with the !set command, then the program will instead run in the foreground. In this case, the result file is named cellname.fc_log, and Xic will be unresponsive until the run completes.

Dump Unified List File
This button allows an input file to be generated, which is in a unified list format compatible with the supported programs. The default name for this file is cellname.lst, where cellname is the current cell name.

FcArgs
This text entry area can be given a string, which will be included in the argument list when the program is run with the Run Extraction button. This allows specialized command line options to be provided during the run, which the user may require. This entry field is tied to the FcArgs variable.

If the interface detects that FasterCap from FastFieldSolvers.com is being used, and this entry is empty, the default argument string

-b -a0.01

will be imposed. A ``-b'' option will always be added if missing from the FasterCap arguments list, as this argument is necessary for correct FasterFap operation in this mode. The ``-a'' option is almost always used, as it specifies auto-refinement, however it is technically not necessary and won't be imposed if not given, except in the case where no arguments are given at all.

Path to FasterCap or FastCap-WR
Near the bottom of the page is an entry area where the path to the executable program can be edited. This entry area displays and sets the FcPath variable.