Re: gEDA-user: Need cool first application for gdatabase

[Dan McMahill <dan@mcmahill.net>]

On Mon, Nov 03, 2003 at 08:40:26PM -0500, Bill Cox wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> I think gdatabase will come into use out there in any significant volume 
> until at least one really cool application is built on it.  I'm looking 
> for the right first tool.  I'm hoping that if I spear-head development 
> of the first tool, then others will get involved to expand from there. 
> In particular, I hope this platform will enhance the open-source 
> community's ability to come out with automated EDA tools.
> 
> Some ideas:
> 
> -- Schematic generator from structural Verilog/VHDL.  It could take 
> output from Icarus Verilog and generate .sch and .sym files.  It could 
> also possibly generate schematics from the structural portions of RTL 
> level Verilog

It would be cool to be able to generate hierarchical schematics from 
behavioral verilog.  As someone pointed out to me (Stuart I think it
was), if you're handed someone elses verilog code, making a block diagram
is often a good way to start understanding it.


> -- A netlist translation capability:  Verilog/VHDL/SPICE both in and out 
> so we can convert from one to the other.

> -- A PCB place and route tool
There is a [broken I think] placer in pcb as well as a [functional I 
think] autorouter.  In general though I expect there's some room in
that project for more attention to the database.

-Dan

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