When scaling, only the physical (not electrical) data are scaled.
If the input file contains multiple top-level cells, all are translated, using the specified parameters.
When Use Window or Flatten Hierarchy is set, only physical data are converted, i.e., there will be no electrical data in the resulting file. The format of the new file will conform to the settings in the Conversion - Export panel.
When Use Window or Flatten Hierarchy is set, an internal symbol table is used to keep track of the hierarchy (similar to skeleton mode). There is a consequent chance of running into memory limitations with the hugest files. Labels are ignored in these modes.
When clipping, wires that require clipping are converted to polygons.
If the input file is in CIF format, and symbol names are not provided (i.e., no symbol name extension is found), the generated symbol names will be ``SymbolN'', where N is the integer symbol number given in the CIF file.
When converting CIF files to GDSII or OASIS, if the CIF layer is found in the layer table and it has a GDSII output (layer and datatype number) mapping, that mapping will be used. Otherwise, if the CIF layer name is a four-digit hex number, it will be interpreted ``LLDD'' to obtain the GDSII layer and datatype numbers. Otherwise, a new layer number and datatype will be internally generated. New layer numbers start at 1 and increment, with datatype number 255.
The header of a GDSII file optionally contains information about fonts, reference libraries, and other things. This information is saved in a file named ``gds_header_props'' in the same directory as the output files, when converting to native files only. The file is subsequently ignored by Xic, as this information is not used by Xic.
The GDSII directives absolute magnification, absolute angle, and absolute path width are not supported in Xic The values are taken as relative, and a warning is issued. These are not supported by other file formats in a portable way, and should be considered obsolete.
The conversion of GDSII to ``gds-text'' is a diagnostic tool for converting the data in a (binary) GDSII file into a text form. Each record of the stream file is parsed and output generated in sequence. The text file can grow quite large, though the NumToTxtCells variable can be used to limit the number of cells written. The text file is mainly used as a diagnostic for misbehaving GDSII files. It can be reconverted into a GDSII file, thus, the text representation is in effect another valid file format for Xic data. This facility allows corrupted or otherwise problematic GDSII files to be repaired.
OASIS files converted to ascii text use the same ascii record format as anuvad-0.2 from SoftJin (http://www.softjin.com/html/anuvad.htm), except for the separator lines that indicate the start of physical and electrical records. The anuvad tool set is free, and contains libraries and programs to convert between GDSII and OASIS formats, and to/from ascii text representations of those formats. The boolean variable OasPrintNoWrap will suppress line wrapping when set, i.e., each record will occupy one possibly very long text line. The boolean variable OasPrintOffset will add file offsets to the output when set.
When the selected output format is Xic, the input will be converted to a number of native symbol files, one for each cell defined in the input. The same result can be obtained by reading the input file into the database with the Edit command, and then using the Conversion - Export panel to generate the Xic files.
When translating to CGX format, the multi-box capability of BOX records in CGX is not used. However, this feature is used when CGX files are written from memory. Thus, reading a hierarchy into Xic and writing out a CGX file will probably result in a smaller CGX file than using the direct conversion (by up to twenty percent).