RODEO
Circuit Parameters Control

Circuit parameters are displayed separately in each vertical list (column), according to the hierarchical context and regular expression filter. Thus, if the hierarchical context of a certain column is dzBB:dzPSink:, and the filter is .*, then all master circuit parameters from the library dzBB and the cell dzPSink matching the regular expression .* will be displayed in a column in the alphabetic order. You can change the context by clicking onto the context button and selecting the new context. You can change the filtering expression by typing in any valid regular expression followed by the CR (carriage return). In either case, the contents of the column is updated. Note, that Rodeo automatically appends the beginning-of-string (^) to the head of the filter, and the end-of-string ($) to the end of the filter. Thus, if you type in [^X].*, the actual filtering expression will be ^[^X].*$.

The current values of the circuit parameters are displayed next to their names (remember that the displayed names may differ from the names you type in!). You can alter any parameter by typing in the new value followed by the CR (carriage return). If a value has been altered, it changes its color from blue to red. You can always revert to the blue value by typing "r" in the corresponding entry. To restore the values of all red parameters, select Restore All from the CP menu. To accept (finalize) the red values and paint them blue, select Grab from the CP menu. Once grabbed, the value of a circuit parameter "forgets" its history.

You can customize the size of the control block by selecting the number of Rows and Columns from the Size menu. New columns are created with the default values of the context (Global) and of the filter (.*).

You can save the current values of all circuit parameters into a valid PSCAN input file (.cir file) for further reuse. To do this, select Save As ... from the CP menu. You will be prompted for the name of the output file (the default value is untitled.cir). You can also instruct Rodeo to save the parameters in the flat mode rather than in the hierarchical mode (default). In the former case, you risk to loose the saved information, because the netlister you use may not always generate the same flat names for the circuit parameters. Yet, that may be useful to do the reverse procedure of importing the parameters' values into a schematic editor.

Once you implicitly specified the name of the save file (e.g., foo.cir), you can select Save to foo.cir from the CP menu to rewrite that file.

Rodeo has a limited ability of importing PSCAN files with the new values of the circuit parameters. Only the files that have been saved from Rodeo, can be imported. To import the circuit parameters, select Load ... from the CP menu. Rodeo will pop up a file browser listing all .cir files and directories. You can either select a file name or type it in at the provided prompt. To load the desired file, press the Ok button.

To close the control block, select Close from the Close menu.

To automate the process of loading and saving the circuit parameters, Rodeo provides two special functions and one customization variable. You can use these functions and the variable in your .pscanrc file.

• The function CPLoadExt <fname> loads the file <fname> into Rodeo.
• The function CPSaveExt <fname> saves the circuit parameters into the file <fname>. The mode is chosen according to the value of the variable CPSaveFlat (its default value is 0).