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What is LASI

LASI (LAyout System for Individuals) is a "general purpose" layout and design system originally intended for integrated circuits. It is versatile enough that it can not only be used for ICs, but MEMS, discrete devices, schematics, PC boards and project documentation drawings. LASI is a "precision" drawing system where figures are always precisely located. LASI is intended for both educational and professional use.

For students LASI teaches not only design but a better understanding of what you are really doing. To use LASI, you need to know something about your technology, the physics involved and have some circuit intuition, not just know how to run software. It is for people who still consider IC design something of an art.

A very simple version of LASI was written for MS-DOS in the mid-80's by the author to be used for his own IC design. When Windows 95 came out, LASI was rewritten as version 6 for Windows. The current version 7 is more elegant, functional and runs on all Windows versions.

The original intention of LASI was to aid commercial design systems. It still has that purpose since layout work can be done on any Windows PC or Laptop, on Linux systems using Wine, and then be transferred using common formats such as GDS.

Drawings are built from hierarchical cells stored as individual TLC (Transportable Layout Cells) files. TLC files can be easily traded between different drawings. TLC files are in XML or optionally the original text format.

LASI consists of a main drawing editor program and several "utility" programs. These utilities include GDS, CIF and DXF format converters, a user programmable bitmap based DRC, a basic matrix router, and a Spice netlist compiler that extracts Spice circuit files from both schematic and layout and can do an LVS compare. The utilities can run independently or directly out of the editor.

LASI compiles Spice net files but does not do simulations. There are good Spice simulators available already. Most simulators can run directly out of the main editor or the Spice compile utility.

Although fairly well developed by now, LASI is still an ongoing project. There is always something that you can add, improve or fix. Watch this site for the latest version, approximately every month or two.


What's New

7.0.56

  • LasiCkt the Spice compiler has been revised and now collects Antenna Rules information. (Comments are invited.)

  • The control panel of LasiCkt has been simplified with different setup categories assigned to separate control buttons.

  • The control panels of most of the utility programs now automatically adjust for Windows Title Bar size changes.

  • Special single  contacts have been added on layer 15 in the tutorials to help reduce Spice compile times.

  • The "\Lasi\Resource" folder is now used as the common source of certain files referenced in utility program setups. This allows future updates to be done in only one place.

  • As usual many little tweaks, fixes and help changes.

  • Dated 10-24-2008 -- a few cleanups in the utility log files.

7.0.55

  • Most programs now check if the current folder is a drawing folder, otherwise they might not work correctly.

  • The Setup program now can create new drawings directly. This avoids the awkward Windows procedure.

  • The size of Spice code lines has been increased to 128 characters to accommodate longer text strings.

  • Ring oscillator cells have been added to the EduLib cell library to check basic process speed.

  • As usual, many small help file changes.

7.0.54

  • The Arc command will now generate closed ellipses and circles directly. Read Arc help.

  • The LasiCkt Spice compiler now has options to create and better use subcircuit libraries to speed up compiles.

    •  It now has an option to skip compiling a subcircuit if  the subcircuit cell in a layout is in outline.

    •  It also has the option to compile only the subcircuits of a layout to make it easier to build a library file.

  • A few broken links in the help should have been fixed and some reediting of the help files has been done

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