OASIS Support in Xic

Xic was the first (to our knowledge) commercial implementation of the OASIS format. Some limited tools have been made available from Mentor Graphics (GDSII/OASIS translator), and SoftJin (GDSII/OASIS translator and text mode converters). We recommend anuvad from SoftJin
(http://www.softjin.com/html/anuvad.htm), which has been our ``reference'' in establishing portability.

This capability was designed from the draft SEMI-3626 document, but has incorporated changes from the final specification.

This section describes the OASIS capabilities in Xic. The present status of OASIS support in Xic is complete, the bottom line being

1. Xic can read any spec-conforming OASIS file.
2. OASIS output from Xic is readable by any other spec-conforming tool.
3. Exceptions to the above are bugs, please report!

OASIS is one of the supported archive formats, along with GDSII, CIF, and CGX. CGX (Computer Graphics eXchange) format is another ``improved'' GDSII developed and placed in the public domain by Whiteley Research. The archive formats have the following capabilities in Xic:

• Files can be read directly into Xic, either using the Open command, or with similar buttons and functions in Xic.

• Files can be converted directly to another (or the same) archive format, or to Xic native cell files, from the Format Conversion function in the Convert Menu. While converting, scaling, windowing (clipped or not) and flattening can be employed. There is also provision for selecting the layers to convert.

• Xic can output a hierarchy in memory to any of the archive formats. The default format is the format of origin, if any.

• The random access of cells from the file, such as with the Contents function of the Files Listing or the library access mechanism applies to all archive formats.

• The Cell Hierarchy Digest (CHD) and Cell Geometry Digest (CGD) features, which facilitate working with very large files (too large to fit into the main memory database) apply to all archive formats.

• The script function that splits a file spatially into pieces, ChdWriteSplit applies to all archive formats for both input and output.