( ESNUG 358 Item 4 ) --------------------------------------------- [8/23/00]
Subject: ( ESNUG 355 #18 ) Cheap/Free/Shareware GDS-II Win95/98/NT Viewers
> Could anyone give me any pointers to GDS file viewer for WIndows95/98/NT?
> Freeware is preffered, but shareware is OK. I know there are commercial
> ones which cost me $500 and up.
>
> - Sonny
From: Michael Stabenfeldt <stabie@jump.net>
John,
I sell a gds2 viewer for $39.00 that runs on linux. Considering it has
loaded & viewed stream files in excess of 400MB on reasonable PC's (450MHz
/256MB Ram) and large stream files (in excess of 2GB) on sun boxes, I think
my customers have thought its a pretty good deal. Sorry, no windows though.
- Mike Stabenfeldt
Stabie-Soft http://www.stabie-soft.com
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From: Pallab Chatterjee <pdec@earthlink.net>
John,
The only real one I have found that is usable for production work in a PC
environment:
ICEditors - http://www.iceditors.com has a real 12+ year in production
product that works quite well on the PC to large data base sizes - (I have
opened 600MB files on a machine with 384MB ram). Their full editing
version sells for about $3-4K but they have a free download of the product
for eval that is a great view only tool. I have been using the product
since 1987 and have recommended it to about 70+ other users who use it and
love (some are full time offsite layout contractors)- only drawback is it
still uses a "dos" looking GUI - by the polygon data is about the fastest
you have ever seen.
If you are NOT looking for a Free tool but a real production big chip tool
(I have opened up to a 1.3GB gdsii file on a 400MHz PII with 384MB RAM in
under 10 min) with a configurable GUI and documented API - try the Expert
layout editor from Silvaco ( http://www.silvaco.com ). The tool works
great - it auto builds tech files, read existing Cadence tech files, reads
Dracula DRC/LVS decks and has some really cool hierarchy viewing treelists
tools. The tools are 15K+ but it is worth it - especially if you want an
inexpensive debug seat for DRC/LVS/Antenna/ERC for your top level. It
yields better performance on a <$5K PIII system than you can get with
Virtuoso XL on a J5000 or a Sun 4500.
I am an independent consultant; my recommendations are based on using the
tools to assist in 350+ tapeouts in my career - these tools actually work.
- Pallab Chatterjee
P&D Engineering Consultants, Inc. Livermore, CA
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From: [ Sonny from Japan ]
Hi John,
I am the original poster of the article. I have tried some freewares as
well as try-and-buys after the post. Then I ended up with buying a
commercial one called "SView-PC" sold by a Japanese company. Pls refer to
http://www.astron.co.jp/sviewdata2.html .... no English page ;-(
This software is faster than GDSVU, and is ~$2K for a floating license.
- [ Sonny from Japan ]
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