3.2.5 DF-ISE

This is the native file format of the ISE software company. Both reading and writing support has been implemented with the intention to integrate the software suite of the ISE software company (e.g. DESSIS) [43].

DF-ISE supports several different grid elements in its grid file format. Since the Reader interface only supports tetrahedral (triangular in two-dimensions) grids, grid files that contain other elements are at present not supported. Other elements would make a gridding step necessary which imposes an unnecessary burden on this implementation of the I/O layer. The lack of support for such grid files is not a real restriction since the ISE meshing tool is capable of producing tetrahedral (triangular) grids on demand.

One shortcoming of the DF-ISE format is that only one grid can be stored on each segment, and the grids of all segments must be boundary conforming. Such a constraint does not exist in the WAFER-STATE-SERVER data or in the I/O layer. The current implementation of the Writer will thus indicate an error condition if Wafer data with more than one grid or with non-conforming boundaries are to be stored on a DF-ISE file. Since the WAFER-STATE-SERVER supports the creation of boundary conforming grids, the application is supposed to call the appropriate WAFER-STATE-SERVER method (mkSingleGrid, c. f. Appendix A.4.3) to prepare the data suitable for the DF-ISE file format.

The above mentioned shortcoming makes it difficult to use DF-ISE as a native file format for the WAFER-STATE-SERVER. It is recommended only to use DF-ISE for data exchange between ISE tools and other simulators integrated with the WAFER-STATE-SERVER.

2003-03-27