KiCad

Hierarchy using symbols pointing to schematic for IC design

Asked by Kevin Faison

I am interested in exploring the use of KiCad as a front end schematic capture tool for IC design.

With this in mind, is there a way to create a part symbol that points to its underlying schematic and/or netlist?
So each "part" would have a symbol view and a corresponding schematic or netlist view (similar to cadence or dxdesigner). The parts would be contained in a library for use across projects and also for hierarchical design methodology.

I would like to select a symbol in the top sheet and push down into the part schematic (or netlist) tor transverse up and down the hierarchy.

Thanks,
Kevin

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Wayne Stambaugh
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Best Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw) said : 		#1

Unfortunately, this is currently not possible. The best thing you can do is use a descriptive name for the underlying sheet filename. Sheets are reusable so once you have a circuit designed, you can include it as many times as you like but there is no way to assign it to a schematic to a symbol. You may be able to draw symbol information inside the sheet rectangle using graphics but that would be ugly and not very portable. We could at some point in the future allow a symbol to be linked to an underlying schematic for IC design but that wont likely happen until V7. We have plenty to do to get V6 out within a reasonable time frame.

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Kevin Faison (kevinfaison) said : 		#2

Wayne,

Thanks for your response. The schematic capture in KiCad is looking pretty solid overall and the team has done an amazing job on it. The ability to link a symbol to a schematic would be terrific and I hope this makes the list of priorities :-) .

I've already got a simulation cockpit that works well in interfacing an existing schematic point tools to a variety of spice simulator and IC layout point tools. It emulates an expensive cadence style IC flow at much lower cost.

The text based schematic format in kicad opens many possibilities for automation. The PCB based autorouting might also be leveraged, perhaps by first treating IC based subcircuit layouts as pcb footprints for auto-routing before conversion back to IC compatible formats such as GDSII.

Ill be following the progress on this. In the mean time I will see if I can make your suggestions work for me. Keep up the good work!

Thanks,
Kevin

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Kevin Faison (kevinfaison) said : 		#3

Thanks Wayne Stambaugh, that solved my question.

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Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw) said : 		#4

Kevin,

Thanks for using KiCad. I'm glad to hear you have a work flow that works for ICs. After version 6 is released, we should be at a point where we can start exploring IC work flow support. I will add the your symbol linked to schematic request in the version 7 road map for consideration.

Cheers,

Wayne