Hierarchical design: Multisim works but the layout underneath it not.

[dekkersj]

Hi there,

From the schematic editor in Multisim I can create hierarchical design blocks which I can repeat as often as I want. What I would like to happen is that when I have designed such a seperate block in Ultiboard, all other blocks gets the same layout. But now it is like I am starting all over again and for me there is no point in creating hierarchical design blocks in the first place. Such a simple feature should not be that hard to implement, I geuss. So, what I want is to do the layout once for one design block in Multisim and copy the Multisim schematic as well as the layout underneath it. Is that possible?

Regards,
Jacco

[RnDMonkey]

I think we would all appreciate some input from NI on this one. I am not sure it can be done that easily, because Ultiboard works off of netlists, and just builds the circuits from those every time. Would you mind attaching a copy of a design with these blocks so I can experiment with it?

[dekkersj]

Hi,

Please find attached the zipped folder which contains basically three designs:

The hierarchical block to be copied:

Inside this block, the following schematic is to be found

With it's layout:

Up to this point everything went well. But when I place two copies of the abovementioned hierarchical blocks, the layout looks like this:

And this makes no sense to me. It would be very handy if I would get something like this if I transfer the schematic in Multisim into Ultiboard:

(please note that this is a fake layout, I copied the same picture twice)

Regards,
Jacco

Message Edited by dekkersj on 07-14-2008 04:24 PM

[RnDMonkey]

It looks like NI does not support the function in the way you want. The best option I can see is to use the Group Replica command in Ultiboard. It will be some more manual placement, but it's better than doing them both from scratch. Search in Ultiboard help for "Replicating a Group" and "Copying a Copper Route". That's the best I can tell, but I'd be happy to be wrong.

[dekkersj]

Well, thanx anyway. May be it is something for the programmer's for a next release!

Regards,
Jacco

[lacy]

Not sure if this is what you want but I am going to enclose a couple of your modified schemati/layout to view.

What I did was to make another copy of the hierarchy block and paste it back into Multisim. I then transfered this to Ultiboard and it seem to do what you need. Take a look and see if it is indeed what you want..

I believe what you were trying to do is copy it after transfering to Ultiboard. In this case it just copied all the nets and hooked them up to the same nets. That is why all the transistors were hooked together  as one buncc instead of 2 separate circuits.

Try this and see is all I can suggest. If it isn't what you need then I gave it my best shot.

[lacy]

I have mad a further review of this. In your first layout it appears you have placed and routed the parts. The second picture shows transfered parts that have not been placed or routed and are above the board outline. Any transfers including forward annote will place the components above the board unplaced and unrouted. This is because on a forward annote t actually overwrites the current file in favor of the new one. It would probabably be best to use the technique I described in the previous post. This way you can place as many hierarchy blocks as needed and transfer them in one batch. 

Forgive me if i am missunderstanding the problem and maybe some of what I have mentioned will help.

[RnDMonkey]

Or maybe he wants to perform the layout on the hierarchal block, then have Ultiboard be smart enough to check for the layout like a little footprint, and just use that as a cookie-cutter layout for each instance of that little group of parts? 🙂

[lacy]

I wish to clarify one thing I said about the forward annote. If you have already placed parts and then go back and add another net or component only the new components will be unplaced and unrouted. I may have stated that wrong so I have now corrected that. I still am fuzzy abot this particular situation. I am going to do some more testing to see if I can see what he is seeing here.

[lacy]

I think I get it now. Based upon the pictures my and tests I believe what is happening here is that this user is placing one block in Multisim, Transfering it to Ultiboard 10 and then going back into Multiisim to place another block. The problem as I see it is that after placing the second block he is using Transfer to Ultiboard 10 again under the Transfer menu instedad of the Forward Annote to Ultiboard 10. This is why in the second picture everything is back to being unplaced and unrouted.

This was the only way I could duplicate what I believe he is seeing. My last post actually clued me in on this. It is amazing how making a mistake in your post can possibly solve a problem.

I hope this is it as I can't find anything else.