mayo@wrl.dec.com (Bob Mayo) (09/15/90)
MAGIC VERSION 6 IS NOW AVALABLE
(Includes Stanford's IRSIM program)
USA sites with Internet Access: You can get Magic V6 via FTP.
To receive the account name and password, send a SHORT message to
"mayo@decwrl.dec.com". Please use the subject "MAGIC FTP" (all caps) on
your mail, and in the body state the cities and states in which you will be
using Magic. Magic V6 is not available for use overseas at this time.
Other USA sites: In the near future, we will have a version available on
magnetic tape for USA sites, and I'll post an announcement when that is
ready. Or you can copy the program from a friend that already has it.
Overseas sites: We haven't arranged an export license, so currently we can't
send it outside of the USA. We plan on getting an export license as soon as
the paperwork can be completed. An announcement will be posted when it is
ready.
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Magic is a popular IC layout tool in common use in universities and a
number of industrial sites. The Magic V6 comes with source code and a
relaxed copyright that allows you to redistribute it, modify it, and
generally do what you want with it.
This version of Magic gathers together work done by numerous
people at several institutions since Magic version 4 was
released from Berkeley on the 1986 VLSI tools tape. Version 6 is a
release of Magic and IRSIM. You'll probably want to obtain other tools by
ordering the 1986 VLSI Tools Tape from Berkeley.
This release has been prepared with the assistance of several
groups. Much of the new software came from Walter Scott's group at
the Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL). LLNL also provided
partial funding to help prepare the release. Digital Equipment
Corporation's Western Research Lab (DECWRL) helped out by
providing computer equipment, a place to work, and the services of
one of us (Robert Mayo). Don Stark, Michael Arnold, and Gordon
Hamachi also worked on the release at DECWRL. Stanford donated
significant pieces of new code, including a simulation system called
IRSIM. Other individuals and institutions have also contributed code
and assistance in ways too numerous to detail here.
New features in Magic Version 6 include:
New and Improved Routing - Michael Arnold and Walter Scott of
LLNL
Three major routing improvements have been made in
this version of Magic. There is a new, improved, global
router courtesy of Walter Scott (of LLNL). Walter
Scott has also added a gate array router. See the
"garoute" command in the manual page for details. Michael
Arnold (of LLNL) has written an interactive maze router that
allows the user to specify hints to control the routing.
See the documentation for the "iroute" command.
Extractor Enhancements - Don Stark of Stanford and
Walter Scott of LLNL
The new "extresis" command, developed by Don Stark,
provides substantially better resistance extraction.
Magic's normal extraction ("extract") lumps resistances on
a node into a single value. In branching networks, this
approximation is often not acceptable. Resis was written
to solve this problem. Walter Scott added accurate path
length extraction, an important feature when dealing with
high speed circuits, such as ECL.
New contact structure - Walter Scott and Michael
Arnold of LLNL and Don Stark of Stanford
Multilayer contacts are handled better. In the
previous version of Magic, there needed to be a separate
contact type for each possible combination of contact
layers over a given point. This caused a combinatorial
explosion of tile types for multi-layer technologies with
stacked contacts. Under the new scheme, there are only a
couple of tile types for each layer: one that connects up,
one that connects down, and one that connects in both
directions.
Simulator Interface to IRSIM - Stanford
A simulator interface is provided courtesy of Stanford.
See the commands "startrsim", "simcmd", and "rsim". The
irsim simulator, Stanford's much improved rewrite of esim,
is included in this distribution. Credit goes to Mike
Chow, Arturo Salz, and Mark Horowitz.
New device/machine Support - Various
X11 is fully supported in this release, and is the
preferred interface. Older drivers for graphics terminals
and X10 are also included, but X11 is the preferred
interface (meaning it is better supported and you'll have
lots of company). Magic's X11 driver has a long history,
starting with an X10 driver by Doug Pan at Stanford. Brown
University, the University of Southern California, the
University of Washington, and Lawrence Livermore National
Labs all prepared improved versions, some of them for X11.
Don Stark of Stanford took on the task of pulling these
together and producing the X11 driver in this release.
Magic runs on a number of workstations, such as the
DECstation 3100 and Sun's SPARC processors. Partial Unix
System V support is provided. The system also runs on the
MacII. Don Stark gets credit for the System V mods and
support for HP machines, while Mike Chow helped get it
running on the MacII.
To assist people with small machines (such as the Mac
II), Magic can now be compiled without some of its fancy
features. Compilation flags are provided, as indicated
below, to eliminate things like routing, plotting, or calma
output. This is courtesy of Don Stark.
--Bob Mayo, mayo@decwrl.dec.commayo@wrl.dec.com (Bob Mayo) (09/28/90)
Dear Magic Users, The following public FTP area has been set up for Magic-related notes: machine: gatekeeper.dec.com account: anonymous password: guest directory: pub/DEC/magic The first file to look at is called "notes.all", and contains a summary of things of interest to Magic V6 users. This FTP account has lots of non-Magic-related goodies, too. In fact, over 1 gigabyte of public information is available. --Bob