Netlist Comparison

Netlists generated on two different tools, so a text-compare won't work :-(

Has to be something like an LVS checker, but not tied to the layout tool.

...Jim Thompson

The trouble is that two netlisters will name devices differently and number nodes differently.

So a netlist comparator must travel in from I/O in each netlist and match connectivity and device sizes, not naming convention.

So an ordinary text compare won't work.

...Jim Thompson

Thanks for the lead. I'll check into it.

...Jim Thompson

Jim,

I think you're asking for something that can actaully parse the netlist and understand it.

However, I just use text compares, like a UNIX style diff(you can run it as part of cygwin on a PC) or Windows WINDIFF.EXE. It doesn't "read" the netlist in that it doesn't understand the topology of the netlist'ed circuit, but if two netlists were generated with the same tools, then it's very effective.

--Mike

If I understand correctly, a standard text-based line compare tool won't work because it reports differences that don't matter to you?

If so, can you give me an example of two lines that are different, but you want to be treated as the same? Or, if I missed the point, the kinds of things that need to be different from a line compare tool.

I was just googling and found:

Seems more powerful than windiff, and has some configurable features, but not sure if it could be trained to do what you want.

In article , Jim Thompson wrote: [...]

What format are the net lists? Did the references change from one version to the next or is it only the net names and some interconnections?

Where I work we use a perl script to compare net lists in the PADS2K format. It almost works right.

These people:

do a PC layout tool and a DRC and a NLE (Netlist Extractor tool) that works with their LVS Tool.

Their site seems to say it can compare netlists when it claims: " LVS program compares netlists: LVL, SVS, and LVS "

where the "SVS" seems to mean "Schematic vs Schematic".

They also say: " Accepts schematic netlists in CDL, SPICE, PSPICE, and HSPICE dialects "

May be what you want but it may only compare netlists from two instances of the same tool.

Robert

You're welcome. Let me know what you find out. I used their Layout, DRC, and LVS tools. But I never had reason to poke into these capabilities if they had them at the time.

Robert