Using the Electric VLSI Design System

Chapter III: HIERARCHY

| ## 3: Creating Instances |

| To place an instance of a facet in another facet, use the New Facet Instance... command of the Edit menu. You will be shown a list of facets that are available for creation. After selecting one, click to create an instance in the higher-level facet. If you place an instance from a different library, that library will be linked to the current one. Linked libraries are read from disk together, and form a single hierarchy that spans multiple files. See section 3-9 for more on libraries.

An alternate way to create a facet instance is to duplicate an existing one on the screen. This requires that an instance of that particular facet already exist. Highlight the existing facet and use the Duplicate command of the Edit menu. Then move the cursor to the intended location of the new instance and click to create the copy. Note that this command copies all attributes of the original node including its orientation.

Note that when a facet instance is being created, the cursor points to its grab point. Normally, the grab point is at the lower-left corner, but it can be modified by the placement of a Facet-Center node inside of the facet. To place this, use the Facet Center subcommand of the New Special Object command of the Edit menu. You must place it inside of the facet definition, and it affects the grab point for all subsequent creation of facet instances. |

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