Expert
Expert: hierarchical analog layout editor for mixed-signal and RF ICs
Analog layout, checked against design rules while you draw it. The editor opens designs larger than 10 GB in minutes.
What Expert does
Expert is Silvaco’s hierarchical IC layout editor for analog, RF, mixed-signal and digital work. You draw at any angle. Design rules are checked as you edit, so a spacing error shows up while you can still move the polygon, not at sign-off. It runs on Linux and Windows.
Capabilities
The layout errors that cost most are the ones found after the layout looks finished. Expert
runs rule checks and connectivity checks while you’re still editing.
Editing and capacity
Set up the interface, hotkeys and toolbars the way your team works. Script the steps you repeat, and share libraries across everyone on the project. Edit a cell in place inside its hierarchy, explode it, or work on flattened data, in as many windows as the job needs.
Multimillion-transistor designs load, pan and zoom quickly, even on an ordinary workstation.
Interactive verification
DRC Assist checks the rules you switch on during each edit. It flags a violation with its measured value, and you fix it on the spot. While you draw a wire, it shows that wire’s resistance.
Click any shape and Node Probing highlights everything electrically connected to it. The short locator traces power-to-ground shorts. You can compare two layouts against each other, and browse SmartDRC/LVS errors without leaving the editor.
Automation
Drive layout from a netlist, and build parameterized cells from JavaScript or Silvaco’s LISA scripting language instead of drawing each variant by hand.
Any-angle rulers keep measurements accurate on non-Manhattan geometry, and equal-resistance routing handles TFT and flat-panel interconnect.
Technology support
CMOS, BiCMOS, GaAs and other processes all run in Expert. Start from one of its custom PDKs or an iPDK, and check your foundry’s PDK before you evaluate.
If you already run Virtuoso, your technology-file setup can start from that information.
Formats
Expert reads and writes GDSII, LEF/DEF, DXF, OASIS, CIF, Applicon, OpenAccess databases, .eld and .sld.
Encryption keeps your own IP, and IP you license from third parties, protected inside the layout.
Works with
Layout sits between the schematic and sign-off, so the tools on either side matter as
much as the editor.
Takes in
A schematic, a netlist or an existing layout database.
Gateway: schematic-driven layout, with cross-probing between schematic and layout
A netlist, for netlist-driven layout
An existing GDSII database, or OASIS, LEF/DEF and OpenAccess data
Hands off to
Silvaco verification and extraction, plus Calibre for third-party sign-off.
SmartDRC/LVS: physical verification, with errors browsed inside Expert
Hipex: parasitic extraction, back-annotated to the schematic netlist
Victory RCx: 3D field-solver RC extraction from the manufacturing side, whose solvers also run inside Expert as Hipex-FS
Calibre Interactive, Calibre RealTime and Calibre RVE, when sign-off DRC and LVS run in Calibre
Applications
Analog and mixed-signal layout
Hierarchical custom layout, driven from a Gateway schematic
RF layout
All-angle polygons for RF and microwave elements, inductors included
Digital blocks
Netlist-driven layout built from standard cells
TFT and flat panel design
Equal-resistance and equal-length routing, fan-shaped connections and routing along a curve
Proof and resources
Customer
July 2025
Silicon Creations
An analog and mixed-signal IP supplier with IP in production from 7 to 180 nm. Its most advanced FinFET design flow uses Expert alongside Gateway and SmartView.
“We took advantage of Silvaco’s custom capabilities, including Expert’s flexible scripting and are continuing to push the next generation process technology with upcoming designs using Silvaco’s products.”
Randy Caplan, co-founder, Silicon Creations
Product brief · PDF
July 2025
Expert layout editor
The datasheet: editing and all-angle features, capacity, schematic-driven layout, Pcells, and how it works with Calibre, Virtuoso data and Hipex.
Presentation · PDF
August 2022
Expert layout editor
DRC Assist, Node Probing, layout comparison, the Gateway, SmartDRC, Hipex and Victory RCx integrations, flat-panel features and the cross-section viewer.
Application note · PDF
July 2025
Expert’s Calibre RVE interface for DRC and LVS
Launching Calibre DRC and LVS from Expert, in batch or through Calibre Interactive, and highlighting the errors back in the layout.
Application note · PDF
July 2025
Netlist-driven layout with standard cells
Preparing your own standard cell layouts for netlist-driven layout from Gateway, so net information passes from schematic to layout.
Application note · PDF
August 2022
Custom PCell evaluators in Expert OA
OpenAccess Pcells in Expert’s OA mode: the bundled PyCell evaluator, and how to use the evaluator a PDK requires instead.
See your own layout in Expert
Bring the questions an analog layout evaluation turns on. Does your GDSII or OpenAccess data
open cleanly? Does your Virtuoso technology setup carry over? Which PDK covers your
foundry and node? Put them to our engineers first.
Questions about Expert
What is an IC layout editor?
An IC layout editor is where a chip’s physical geometry gets drawn: the shapes on each mask layer that become transistors, wires and contacts. In analog layout it’s also where design rules and parasitics start to bite. Expert is Silvaco’s layout editor, hierarchical and all-angle, used for digital blocks as well as analog, mixed-signal and RF circuits.
Can Expert import a Virtuoso technology setup?
Yes, if you have one. Expert can build its technology file from your existing Virtuoso information and import layers, colors, stipples, hotkeys, macros and toolbars directly. Nobody rebuilds the layer map by hand, and your layout designers start in surroundings they know.
Which layout formats does Expert read and write?
Expert reads and writes GDSII, OASIS, OpenAccess, LEF/DEF, CIF, DXF and Applicon, plus the .eld and .sld formats, and it supports OpenAccess iPDKs. A layout can also start from a netlist, or from a Gateway schematic that stays linked to it for cross-probing.
What is interactive DRC and how does DRC assist work?
Interactive DRC checks design rules while the layout is being drawn, not in a separate run afterwards. In Expert, DRC Assist takes its rules from the technology file and reports each violation with the numbers behind it. It also recognizes shapes sitting in lower cells of the hierarchy, so you can correct errors before moving on.
Does Expert work with Calibre?
Yes. Launch Calibre DRC and LVS from inside Expert, either as a batch job or through Calibre Interactive, then highlight each error in your layout from Calibre RVE. Calibre RealTime adds sign-off quality DRC on demand, though the Calibre interface is Linux-only.
Can Expert generate parameterized cells?
Yes. Pcells can be scripted in JavaScript or in LISA, Silvaco’s own scripting language. They also drive Expert’s netlist-driven and schematic-driven layout. In OpenAccess mode Expert runs OpenAccess Pcells too, with a bundled evaluator for Python-based PyCells or whichever one your PDK calls for.
More in Analog
Gateway
Where the schematic behind Expert’s schematic-driven layout is drawn
Analog and Custom IC
The whole flow from schematic to sign-off, and all nine products in it.