Release 1.0.1475

This is the first preliminary release of the Coriolis 2 framework.

This release mainly ships the global router Knik and the detailed router Kite. Together they aim to replace the Alliance Nero router. Unlike Nero, Kite is based on an innovating routing modeling and ad-hoc algorithm. Although it is released under gpl license, the source code will be avalaible later.

1. A graphical user interface (viewer only).
2. The Knik global router.
3. The Kite detailed router.

• Alliance vst (netlist) & ap (physical) formats.
• Even if there are some references to the Cadence lefdef format, its support is not included because it depends on a library only available to Si2 affiliated members.

Release 1.0.1963

Release 1963 is alpha. All the tools from Coriolis 1 have been ported into this release.

1. The Stratus netlist capture language (GenLib replacement).
2. The Mauka placer (still contains bugs).
3. A graphical user interface (viewer only).
4. The Knik global router.
5. The Kite detailed router.
6. Partially implemented python support for configuration files (alternative to xml).
7. A documentation (imcomplete/obsoleted in Hurricane's case).

Release 1.0.2049

Release 2049 is Alpha.

1. The Hurricane documentation is now accurate. Documentation for the Cell viewer and CRLcore has been added.
2. More extensive Python support for all the components of Coriolis.
3. Configuration is now completly migrated under Python. xml loaders can still be useds for compatibilty.
4. The cgt main has been rewritten in Python.

Release v2.0.0

1. Migrated the repository from svn to git, and release complete sources. As a consequence, we drop the distribution packaging support and give public read-only access to the repository.
2. Deep rewrite of the Katabatic database and Kite detailed router, achieve a speedup factor greater than 20...

Fixed Directory Tree

In order to simplificate the work of the ccb installer, the source, build and installation tree is fixed. To successfully compile Coriolis you must follow it exactly. The tree is relative to the home directory of the user building it (noted ~/ or $HOME/). Only the source directory needs to be manually created by the user, all others will be automatically created either by ccb or the build system.

Building Coriolis

The first step is to create the source directory and pull the git repository:

dummy@lepka:~$ mkdir -p ~/coriolis-2.x/src
dummy@lepka:~$ cd ~/coriolis-2.x/src
dummy@lepka:~$ git clone https://www-soc.lip6.fr/git/coriolis.git
dummy@lepka:~$ cd coriolis

Second and final step, build & install:

dummy@lepka:src$ ./bootstrap/ccp.py --project=coriolis --make="-j4 install"
dummy@lepka:src$ ./bootstrap/ccb.py --project=coriolis --doc --make="-j1 install"

We need two steps because the documentation do not support to be generated with a parallel build. So we compile & install in a first step in -j4 (or whatever) then we generate the documentation in -j1

The complete list of ccb functionalities can be accessed with the --help argument. It also may be run in graphical mode (--gui).

Packaging Coriolis

Packager should not uses ccb, instead bootstrap/Makefile.package is provided to emulate a top-level autotool makefile. Just copy it in the root of the Coriolis git repository (~/corriolis-2.x/src/coriolis/) and build.

Sligthly outaded packaging configuration files can also be found under bootstrap/:

• bootstrap/coriolis2.spec.in for rpm based distributions.
• bootstrap/debian for Debian based distributions.

Hooking up into Alliance

Coriolis relies on Alliance for the cell libraries. So after installing or packaging, you must configure it so that it can found those libraries.

This is done by editing the one variable cellsTop in the Alliance helper (see Alliance Helper). This variable must point to the directory of the cells libraries. In a typical installation, this is generally /usr/share/alliance/cells.

Environment Helper

To simplify the tedious task of configuring your environment, a helper is provided in the bootstrap source directory:

~/coriolis-2.x/src/bootstrap/coriolisEnv.py

Use it like this:

dummy@lepka:~> eval `~/coriolis-2.x/src/bootstrap/coriolisEnv.py`

Configuration Helpers

To ease the writing of configuration files, a set of small helpers is available. They allow to setup the configuration parameters through simple assembly of tuples. The helpers are installed under the directory:

<install>/etc/coriolis2/

Where <install>/ is the root of the installation.

cellsTop = '/usr/share/alliance/cells/'

allianceConfig = \
    ( ( 'SYMBOLIC_TECHNOLOGY', helpers.sysConfDir+'/technology.symbolic.xml'   )
    , ( 'REAL_TECHNOLOGY'    , helpers.sysConfDir+'/technology.cmos130.s2r.xml')
    , ( 'DISPLAY'            , helpers.sysConfDir+'/display.xml'               )
    , ( 'CATALOG'            , 'CATAL')
    , ( 'WORKING_LIBRARY'    , '.')
    , ( 'SYSTEM_LIBRARY'     , ( (cellsTop+'sxlib'   , Environment.Append)
                               , (cellsTop+'dp_sxlib', Environment.Append)
                               , (cellsTop+'ramlib'  , Environment.Append)
                               , (cellsTop+'romlib'  , Environment.Append)
                               , (cellsTop+'rflib'   , Environment.Append)
                               , (cellsTop+'rf2lib'  , Environment.Append)
                               , (cellsTop+'pxlib'   , Environment.Append) ) )
    , ( 'SCALE_X'            , 100)
    , ( 'IN_LO'              , 'vst')
    , ( 'IN_PH'              , 'ap')
    , ( 'OUT_LO'             , 'vst')
    , ( 'OUT_PH'             , 'ap')
    , ( 'POWER'              , 'vdd')
    , ( 'GROUND'             , 'vss')
    , ( 'CLOCK'              , '^ck.*')
    , ( 'BLOCKAGE'           , '^blockageNet*')
    )

import os

homeDir = os.getenv('HOME')

allianceConfig = \
    ( ('WORKING_LIBRARY'    , homeDir+'/worklib')
    , ('SYSTEM_LIBRARY'     , ( (homeDir+'/mylib', Environment.Append) ) )
    , ('POWER'              , 'vdd.*')
    , ('GROUND'             , 'vss.*')
    )

# Mauka parameters.
parametersTable = \
    ( ('mauka.annealingBinMult' , TypePercentage, 5      )
    , ('mauka.annealingNetMult' , TypePercentage, 90     )
    , ('mauka.annealingRowMult' , TypePercentage, 5      )
    , ('mauka.ignorePins'       , TypeBool      , False  )
    , ('mauka.insertFeeds'      , TypeBool      , True   )
    , ('mauka.plotBins'         , TypeBool      , True   )
    , ('mauka.searchRatio'      , TypePercentage, 50     )
    , ('mauka.standardAnnealing', TypeBool      , False  )
    )

layoutTable = \
    ( (TypeTab   , 'Mauka', 'mauka')
    # Mauka part.
    , (TypeOption, "mauka.standardAnnealing", "Standart Annealing"    , 0 )
    , (TypeOption, "mauka.ignorePins"       , "Ignore Pins"           , 0 )
    , (TypeOption, "mauka.plotBins"         , "Plot Bins"             , 0 )
    , (TypeOption, "mauka.insertFeeds"      , "Insert Feeds"          , 0 )
    , (TypeOption, "mauka.searchRatio"      , "Search Ratio (%)"      , 1 )
    , (TypeOption, "mauka.annealingNetMult" , "Annealing Net Mult (%)", 1 )
    , (TypeOption, "mauka.annealingBinMult" , "Annealing Bin Mult (%)", 1 )
    , (TypeOption, "mauka.annealingRowMult" , "Annealing Row Mult (%)", 1 )
    , (TypeRule  ,)
    )

Stratus Netlist Capture

Stratus is the replacement for GenLib procedural netlist capture language. It is designed as a set of Python classes, and comes with it's own documentation (Stratus Documentation)

The Hurricane Data-Base

The Alliance flow is based on the mbk data-base, which has one data-structure for each view. That is, Lofig for the logical view and Phfig for the physical view. The place and route tools were responsible for maintaining (or not) the coherency between views. Reflecting this weak coupling between views, each one was stored in a separate file with a specific format. The logical view is stored in a vst file in vhdl format and the physical in an ap file in an ad-hoc format.

The Coriolis flow is based on the Hurricane data-base, which has a unified structure for logical and physical view. That data structure is the Cell object. The Cell can have any state between pure netlist and completly placed and routed design. Although the memory representation of the views has deeply changed we still use the Alliance files format, but they now really represent views of the same object. The point is that one must be very careful about view coherency when going to and from Coriolis.

As for the first release, Coriolis can be used only for two purposes :

• Routing a design, in that case the netlist view and the layout view must be present and layout view must contain a placement. Both views must have the same name. When saving the routed design, it is advised to change the design name otherwise the original unrouted placement in the layout view will be overwritten.
• Viewing a design, the netlist view must be present, if a layout view is present it still must have the same name but it can be in any state.

Mauka -- Placer

Mauka was originally designed to be a recursive quadri-partionner. Unfortunatly it is was based on the hMETIS library (not METIS) which is no longer maintained (only an old binary 32 bits version is available).

So now it is only working in simulated annealing, with performances identical to the Alliance placer ocp. In other words, it is slow...

Reseting the Placement

Once a placement has been done, the placer cannot reset it (will be implemented later). To perform a new placement, you must restart cgt. In addition, if you have saved the placement on disk, you must erase any .ap file, which are automatically reloaded along with the netlist (.vst).

Knik -- Global Router

The quality of Knik global routing solutions are equivalent to those of FGR 1.0. For an in-depth description of Knik algorithms, you may download the thesis of D. Dupuis avalaible from here~: Knik Thesis.

The global router is (not yet) deterministic. To circumvent this limitation, a global routing solution can be saved to disk and reloaded for later uses.

A global routing is saved into a file with the same name as the design and a kgr extention. It is in Box Router output format.

• .

• .

Kite -- Detailed Router

Kite no longer suffers from the limitations of Nero. It can route big designs as its runtime and memory footprint is almost linear (with respect to the number of gates). It has successfully routed design of more than 150K gates.

• Works only with SxLib standard cell gauge.
• Works always with 4 routing metal layers (M2 through M5).
• Do not allow (take into account) pre-routed wires on signals other than power or ground.

After each run, Kite displays a set of completion ratios which must all be equal to 100% if the detailed routing has been successfull. In the event of a failure, on a saturated design, you may decrease the edge saturation ratio (argument --edge) to balance more evenly the design saturation. That is, the maximum saturation decrease at the price of a wider saturated area and increased wirelength. This is the saturation of the global router Knik, and you may increase/decrease by steps of 5%, which represent one track. The maximum capacity of the SxLib gauge is 10 tracks in two layers, that makes 20 tracks by Knik edge.

Routing a design is done in three ordered steps:

1. Global routing
   .
2. Detailed routing
   .
3. Finalize routing
   .

After the detailed routing step the Kite data-structure is still active. The wiring is thus represented in a way that allows Kite to manage it but which is not completly finished. The finalize step performs the removal of the Kite data-structure and finish/cleanup the wiring so that its connex in the sense of Hurricane. Do not try to save your design before that step, you would get gaps in it.

You may visualize the density (saturation) of either Knik (on edges) or Kite (on GCells) until the routing is finalized. Special layers appears to that effect in the The Layers&Go Tab.

Executing Python Scripts in Cgt

Python/Stratus scripts can be executed either in text or graphical mode.

A Python/Stratus script must contains a function called StratusScript with one optional argument, the graphical editor into which it may be running (will be set to None in text mode).

Asides for this requirement, the python script can contains anything valid in Python, so don't hesitate to use any package or extention.

Any script given on the command line will be run immediatly after the initializations and before any other argument is processed.

Small example of Python/Stratus script:

from status import *

def doSomething ():
    # ...
    return

def StratusScript ( editor=None ):
  if globals().has_key ( "__editor" ): editor = __editor
  if editor: setEditor ( editor )

  doSomething()
  return

if __name__ == "__main__" :
  StratusScript ()

This script could be run directly with Python (thanks to the two last lines) or through cgt in both text and graphical modes.

Printing & Snapshots

Printing or saving into a pdf is fairly simple, just uses the File -> Print menu or the + shortcut to open the dialog box.

The print functionality uses exactly the same rendering mechanism as for the screen, beeing almost WYSIWYG. Thus, to obtain the best results it is advisable to select the Coriolis.Printer look (in the Controller), which uses a white background and much suited for high resolutions 32x32 pixels patterns

There is also two mode of printing selectable through the Controller Settings -> Misc -> Printer/Snapshot Mode:

Memento of Shortcuts in Graphic Mode

The main application binary is cgt.

Category	Keys	Action
Moves	, ,	Shift the view in the according direction
Fit		Fit to the Cell abutment box
Refresh	+	Triggers a complete display redraw
Goto		apperture is the minimum side of the area displayed around the point to go to. It's an alternative way of setting the zoom level
Zoom	,	Respectively zoom by a 2 factor and unzoom by a 2 factor
	Area Zoom	You can perform a zoom to an area. Define the zoom area by holding down the left mouse button while moving the mouse.
Selection	Area Selection	You can select displayed objects under an area. Define the selection area by holding down the right mouse button while moving the mouse.
	Toggle Selection	You can toggle the selection of one object under the mouse position by pressing and pressing down the right mouse button. A popup list of what's under the position shows up into which you can toggle the selection state of one item.
		Toggle the selection visibility
Controller	+	Show/hide the controller window. It's the Swiss Army Knife of the viewer. From it, you can fine-control the display and inspect almost everything in your design.
Rulers	,	One stroke on enters the ruler mode, in which you can draw one ruler. You can exit the ruler mode by pressing . Once in ruler mode, the first click on the left mouse button sets the ruler's starting point and the second click the ruler's end point. The second click exits automatically the ruler mode.
		Clears all the drawn rulers
Print	+	Currently rather crude. It's a direct copy of what's displayed in pixels. So the resulting picture will be a little blurred due to anti-aliasing mechanism.
Open/Close	+	Opens a new design. The design name must be given without path or extention.
	+	Close the current viewer window, but do not quit the application.
	+	CTRL+Q quit the application (closing all windows).
Hierarchy	+	Go one hierarchy level down. That is, if there is an instance under the cursor position, load it's model Cell in place of the current one.
	+	Go one hierarchy level up. if we have entered the current model through + , reload the previous model (the one in which this model is instanciated).

Cgt Command Line Options

Appart from the obvious --text options, all can be used for text and graphical mode.

Some Examples :

• Run both global and detailed router, then save the routed design :

  > cgt -v -t -G -R --cell=design --save-design=design_kite
  

• Load a previous global solution, run the detailed router, then save the routed design :

  > cgt -v -t --load-global -R --cell=design --save-design=design_kite
  

• Run the global router, then save the global routing solution :

  > cgt -v -t -G --save-global --cell=design
  

Miscellaneous Settings

The Look Tab

You can select how the layout will be displayed. There is a special one Printer.Coriolis specifically designed for Printing & Snapshots. You should select it prior to calling the print or snapshot dialog boxes.

The Filter Tab

The filter tab let you select what hierarchical levels of your design will be displayed. Hierarchy level are numbered top-down: the level 0 correspond to the top-level cell, the level one to the instances of the top-level Cell and so on.

There are also check boxes to enable/disable the processing of Terminal Cell, Master Cells and Compnents. The processing of Terminal Cell (hierarchy leaf cells) is disabled by default when you load a hierarchical design and enabled when you load a single Cell.

You can choose what kind of form to give to the rubbers and the type of unit used to display coordinates.

The Layers&Go Tab

Control the individual display of all layers and Gos.

• Layers correspond to a true physical layer. From a Hurricane point of view they are all the BasicLayers (could be matched to GDSII).
• Gos stands from Graphical Objects, they are drawings that have no physical existence but are added by the various tools to display extra information. One good exemple is the density map of the detailed router, to easily locate congested areas.

For each layer/Go there are two check boxes:

• The normal one triggers the display.
• The red-outlined allows objects of that layer to be selectable or not.

The Netlist Tab

The Netlist tab shows the list of nets... By default the tab is not synched with the displayed Cell. To see the nets you must check the Sync Netlist checkbox. You can narrow the set of displayed nets by using the filter pattern (supports regular expressions).

An very useful feature is to enable the Sync Selection, which will automatically select all the components of the selected net(s). You can select multiple nets. In the figure the net auxsc35 is selected and is highlited in the Viewer.

The Selection Tab

The Selection tab list all the components currently selecteds. They can be filtered thanks to the filter pattern.

Used in conjunction with the Netlist Sync Selection you will all see all the components part of net.

In this list, you can toggle individually the selection of component by pressing the t key. When unselected in this way a component is not removed from the the selection list but instead displayed in red italic. To see where a component is you may make it blink by repeatedly press the t key...

The Inspector Tab

This tab is very useful, but mostly for Coriolis developpers. It allows to browse through the live DataBase. The Inspector provide three entry points:

• DataBase: Starts from the whole Hurricane DataBase.
• Cell: Inspect the currently loaded Cell.
• Selection: Inspect the object currently highlited in the Selection tab.

Once an entry point has been activated, you may recursively expore all it's fields using the right/left arrows.

The Settings Tab

Here comes the description of the Settings tab.