Cell Size Calculator

The interactive Cell Size Calculator allows you to enter critical dimensions of your circuit to calculate an optimal cell size for those dimensions. When you are satisfied with the cell size, you may close the cell calculator. When the calculator is closed, the cell size is updated in the Box pane of the Circuit Settings dialog box.

Accessing the Calculator

Select Circuit > Settings > Box to access the Cell Size Calculator. The first dialog box that appears provides you with a choice between using the wizard or the interactive calculator dialog box.

Wizard: The wizard walks you through the inputs necessary for the cell size calculation. This is recommend for first-time or beginning users. You enter critical dimensions of your circuit and a tolerance. Based on these values, the software calculates an optimal cell size.  At the end of the wizard, you will be given the option to open the interactive calculator.

Calculator: The interactive calculator allows you to directly input your critical dimensions and a tolerance for those dimensions. Pressing the Calculate button produces an optimal cell size for those dimensions. The actual cell size and the error is displayed for each target in the columns to the right. You may then change your tolerances and/or add and remove critical dimensions and recalculate the cell size based on the new criteria.

You may also manually change the X or Y cell size and press the Update button. This recalculates the Actual value and Error for each target. If the resulting error is greater than the specified tolerance, then the results are displayed in red.

You may also click the Estimate Memory button to get an estimate of the amount of memory needed to analyze the circuit using the cell size values produced by the calculator.