Virtuoso Schematic Composer User Guide

Traversing the Design Hierarchy and Creating a Design Configuration View

Traversing a Design Hierarchy

You can traverse a design hierarchy to view or edit your design using the Design menu. When you descend into a schematic, the schematic editor opens. When you descend into a symbol, the symbol editor opens. When you descend into a text view, the text editor specified by the $EDITOR variable in your .cshrc file opens.

When you descend from within a configuration design, you might descend into a view that is not defined in the configuration expansion definition. The new scope is then out of context, and the window banner indicates you are not in a configuration design.

This section discusses two ways to move down the design hierarchy.

■Use the Design – Hierarchy – Descend Edit / Read command to descend into any view.

When you choose the View Name List option, you descend directly into the first available view in the list.

■Use the Design – Hierarchy – Edit In Place command to access the symbol editor from within the schematic editor environment. The schematic, while not editable, shows you the relationship of your lower-level symbol to the entire schematic.

Descending Using the Descend Command

To descend into a lower-level view of an instance, do the following:

1.Choose Design – Hierarchy – Descend Edit / Read.

If you do not have edit permission to descend, you are prompted to use read mode.

2.Select an instance in your design to descend into.

When you postselect the instance using the default settings, you descend directly into the lower-level view, usually the symbol view. There are exceptions, as follows:

The Descend command behaves differently depending on data and options.

Data

■The Descend form appears if the instance you select has several views available for descending into. The form asks you to choose the view to descend into.

■If the instance is a symbol and the symbol represents a multisheet design, a form lets you choose to go to the index sheet or a specific sheet number.

Virtuoso Schematic Composer User Guide

Traversing the Design Hierarchy and Creating a Design Configuration View

■In the case of a preselected instance, the Descend form opens immediately.

■In case infix mode is enabled or you started theDescend command with a bindkey, the

Descend form opens immediately.

■If the instance is iterated, the Descend form lets you choose the iteration number you want to descend into.

Options

■Press the F3 key in the active Descend command to bring up the options form.

Specify the descend target cellview, either query user or use viewNameList.

If the descend target is query user (default), the Descend form opens, asking you which view you want to descend into.

If the descend target is use viewNameList, type view names in a specific order in the View Name List field of theOptions – Editor command.

The following three forms show data for different instances.

Using a single instance representing a single-sheet schematic on the Descend form.

Using an iterated instance representing a single-sheet schematic on the Descend form.

Descend

Virtuoso Schematic Composer User Guide

Traversing the Design Hierarchy and Creating a Design Configuration View

Using a single instance representing a multisheet schematic on the Descend form.

Descend

If the Descend form opens, do the following:

1.Complete the form depending on your data and options.

2.Click OK.

If you select a graphic view to descend into, either the schematic editor or the symbol editor opens.

If you select a text view, a text editor window opens. Some text editors automatically check your text file for syntax errors. If the editor finds errors, the Parser Error/Warnings form appears and asks if you want to view the error file and reedit it.

Editing an Instance in Place

To edit an instance in place within the context of the higher-level schematic, do the following:

Choose Design – Hierarchy – Edit In Place.

Virtuoso Schematic Composer User Guide

Traversing the Design Hierarchy and Creating a Design Configuration View

You descend into the symbol view of the instance to use the symbol editor while still viewing the graphics of the higher-level schematic. The schematic, while not editable, shows you the relationship of your symbol to the entire schematic.

Descending Using the View Name List

By default, when you descend into another view, the system prompts you for the destination view. If you want to bypass this step to descend directly into a view in a certain order, you can use the View Name List option when you are out of context of a design hierarchy.

To change the default so that you automatically descend into the first available view in the view name list box, do the following:

1.Choose Design – Hierarchy – Descend Edit / Read.

2.Press the F3 key.