Whats the Importance of Perl in Backend Design ?

[hb_cancer]

Hi All !
I was keen to know what might the importance of Perl in Vlsi backend design or more Particularly in Physical Design. Is any other scripting language equally important in Physical Design ?

 

[wangkl]

TCL

 

[snake_eyes]

PERL, TCL and shell scripts in combination are used all over the ASIC design flow. in Synthesis or Back end; they are very usefull.
The apllication of scripts are twofold:
1. They are used as the tool wrappers. They can be used to make a strong platform which gives the user kind of "push-button" flow.
2. The TCL (especially) used to make configuration scripts, contraints additiong and in general tool configuration and usage options. It enables up to run same setup over and over again with out writing the commands again and again. Also it gives easy configurabilty and provdes means to change the configuration easily in case of any tuning changes.

 

[stevepre]

tcl now becomes the standard "command line interface" language for most eda tools, not only for backend, but also for frontend tools.

Perl is more convenient in handling txt and automation. for example, some people uses perl to do ECO (some people use TCL, but through some eda tools' help of commands).

Learn both of them.