GDSII

GDSII (initial Graphical Design Station II or Graphic Data System II ) is the de facto standard data format for layout data of integrated circuits in the EDA field.

The GDSII format was developed in the early 1970s by Calma for its eponymous Graphical Design Station II. Calma is now owned by Cadence; GDSII is now a registered trademark of Cadence.

Since GDSII is relatively old, it has historically caused some drawbacks. The number of available data planes is limited to 255, where this problem has been alleviated somewhat by the introduction of data types as an extension of the layer name. The biggest drawback, however, is (despite the binary format ) in the resulting file size can grow quickly to several gigabytes of complex integrated circuits, with corresponding problems during data transfer and archiving.

To a modern successor definitive solution to these problems, the Open Artwork has been developed ( OASIS ) System Interchange Standard.

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