Adding Multiple GDSII files using GDSFILT UNIX

Artwork's GDSFILT utility can be run directly from a command line on UNIX, Linux and Windows. This web page demonstrates how to use the add option to combine multiple GDSII files into one. Combining two or more GDSII files requires a certain care and understanding of the hierarchy since cell (structure) name collisions could cause undesirable effects in the output file.

Consider the case where we have 5 different GDSII files and we wish to combine them and we do not need to modify the coordinates in any way.

Input  1      demo6_1.gds 
Top Cell      TOP
Description   Left side of the chip

Input  2      demo6_2.gds
Top Cell      TOP
Description   Bottom of the chip

Input  3      demo6_3.gds
Top Cell      TOP
Description   Rightt side of the chip

Input  4      demo6_4.gds
Top Cell      TOP
Description   Top side of the chip

Input  5      demo6_5.gds
Top Cell      TOP
Description   metal data inside the chip

Output        final_add.gds
Top Cell      CHIP

Here is the command line you will need to use with the "add" option. The command line is shown with breaks for clarity on this web page but there are no breaks in the actual command line. Text in italics is not part of the command line

gdsfilt                                                            executable

 demo6_1.gds                                                       input file

  final_add.gds                                                    output file

   TOP                                                             top structure of input

    -add demo6_2.gds demo6_3.gds demo6_4.gds demo6_5.gds           file to be added

    -combine CHIP TOP TOP TOP TOP                                  use combine mode to place the 4 top cells
                                                                   from the added files under CHIP
                                                                   which is the top cell name in the output file.
                                       

Here is how the command line will look like when you run it...

blade1500:hagai: $ /home/cad/gdsfilt/bin/gdsfilt demo6_1.gds final_add.gds TOP -add demo6_2.gds demo6_3.gds demo6_4.gds demo6_5.gds -combine CHIP TOP TOP TOP TOP

GDSFILT v2.30 (May 20,2005) SUN4 (rcs 2.643) Key FLEXlm v8.1+ LICENSE (blade1500)
(C) 1990-2005 Artwork Conversion Software, Inc. (831) 426-6163


Command line:

/home/cad/gdsfilt/bin/gdsfilt demo6_1.gds final_add.gds TOP -add demo6_2.gds demo6_3.gds demo6_4.gds demo6_5.gds -combine CHIP TOP TOP TOP TOP


Fixed tables size: 32768 



Merging the following files:

demo6_1.gds
demo6_2.gds
demo6_3.gds
demo6_4.gds
demo6_5.gds



blade1500:hagai: $ 

Here is how the output file will look like.