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Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

 Section 1:  Mentor Graphics Design Architect (DA) Tutorial


Design Architect (DA) is the Mentor Graphics tool that is used to create a transistor level schematic and a logic level symbol for a design component.  In this tutorial you will use DA to create a transistor level schematic and a logic level symbol for a simple CMOS inverter.
 

1)  Create a working directory and invoke Design Manager.

 

 
2) Create a schematic sheet.

A sheet is a design object that describes the transistor logic for the component that you are creating.  In this section we will create a new sheet, and add the necessary symbols for a CMOS inverter.
 

# of instances

Symbol name

1

ground

1

mp4lv

2

portin

1

portout

3)  Modify the transistor properties.

Each transistor in the schematic must have a unique instance name.  Initially, the instance name is "MP?" for a PnP transistor and "MN?" for an nPn transistor.  The instance name is visible to the right of the transistor symbol.  To change the instance name:

 

4) Add the wires and name the nets

Use the "add wire" button on the palette to connect the symbols together to form the inverter.  Don't forget to wire the substrate contacts on the transistors.  When you are done, the schematic will look like this:

The last step is to change the NET names on the ports.  To change the NET name for the in port,

Now save the sheet, the schematic is complete.  Use the Check > sheet menu item to check for any errors.
 

5)  Create a Symbol
 

 


That's all for section 1. 
Go on to Section 2: IC Station


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Created by
Seth Milman 7/2/98
Last Modified: 7/2/98