Design Workshop Technologies is proud to announce the release of version 8.50 of its successful layout and verification software dw-2000® and two editions of our Viewer product. This release contains new features and many improvements.

Quick note about our future developments

At Design Workshop we are proud to always bring the most compatible and reliable software without jeopardizing or destabilizing our customers from releases to releases. At the same time new hardware and operating system tools makes their ways and offer new solutions to improve user's experience with their environments and brings more POWER! We are talking about 64-bit OS, new multi-core CPUs and extremely powerful video cards.

Our strategy to maintain balanced between compatibility, reliability and take advantage of the new power is to develop software in taking theses aspects in consideration when making our new features and enhancing the ones already in place. We have already started to use the new features even if you don't necessary see changes on the dw-2000 v8.50 interface.

We will soon be releasing other versions and products that will take benefits of the 64-bit OS and other powerful features. Moreover, new partners will join our team to enlarge our product offering. Stay tuned as other announcements will be made in a near future.

dw-2000 v8.50 quick peek at the recent changes:

• The v8.50 have solutions to work around the issues introduced by the Windows Aero desktop themes that could be seen by some of our users with certain model of video cards.


• dw-2000Viewer products has been revised we now offer two editions. The FREE edition allows anyone to open / import dw-2000/GDSII/OASIS/AutoCAD files where as the Viewer+ edition can also be used to convert files from one format to another. All customers with an active subscription automatically upgrade their current version to the Viewer+ edition.


• Layout Editor
  
  • The Circle Element makes its appearance in our element kind list.
  
  
  • The Gravity will fetch and snap on Reference Elements and Circle Elements.
  
  
  • The Library Manager provides a hierarchical view of the entire library.
  
  
  • The Layer Tool window display has been improved and is resizable.
  
  
  • You can group elements in every Structure window at once.
  
  
  • This version includes new and enhanced GPE commands to support Circle elements and multiple group operations.
• A new set of Derived Layer command is available for snapping derived layers, selection of Holes and perform further operation on unmerged derived layers.


• Converters
  
  • The OASIS conversion is available for all customers using the dw-2000 Layout Editor.
  
  
  • The AutoCAD conversion supports AutoCAD-2011 file formats.
  
  
  • The MEBES converted include compression and supports mode 5.
• The PCell developer Kit features a new API for the Advanced Parameter Validation. This API is used to perform cross parameter validation via the PCell Properties window.


• The HLVS provides the ability to display a network outline in the original structure after extraction. The port editor has been improved and new rules are used for merging series and parallel devices during the extraction and LVS.

For more information please read the Release Notes.

Design Workshop Technologies would like to thank our community for collaborating by submitting bug reports, fixes and enhancements.