How do I EM-Extract a Subcircuit and define the subcircuit em/drawing-layer in the subcircuit element (not the lower-level actual subcircuit) in AWR?

• The "spiral" schematic shapes are all drawn on layer1
• Another schematic ("sch1") has the following subcircuits:
  • SUBCKT S1: NET="spiral", shape layer=layer1
  • SUBCKT S2: NET="spiral", shape layer=layer2
  • SUBCKT S3: NET="spiral", shape layer=layer4

What you are asking isn’t possible although the issue isn’t due to the extraction itself. The built-in microstrip models/pcells you are using read their drawing layer info from the linetypes section configured in the lpf, and which lpf linetype gets selected is controlled by either the MSUB name chosen on the corresponding model or the setting you manually select on the dropdown menu in the layout cell properties.

Case 1: If your MSUB definition names match the linetype names in the lpf, then when you select the appropriate MSUB definition for your line, the layout will pick the corresponding linetype used for layout automatically.

Case 2: If your MSUB definition names don’t match your linetype names then you need to manually set the correct drawing layer using the pulldown menu in the layout cell’s shape properties.

In either case, there is no way to pass this information down through the schematic hierarchy which is what you’d need to do in order to extract multiple copies of “spiral” on different linetypes from a single top level schematic. Standard parameters such as width, length, etc, can all be passed through hierarchy with ease, but MSUB and linetype are special cases which cannot.

The simplest work around for you is to just make 4 schematics, “spiral_Cu1”, “spiral_Cu2”, “spiral_Cu3”, and “spiral_Cu4” where the correct linetype is pre-set in each and then place them in your higher level design accordingly. Any of your usual geometrical parameters can still be passed to create different sized devices but the pcells you are reusing are not coded to accept drawing layer information passed through hierarchy in this way.

Best Regards,

Graeme

Click to expand...