Electric has the concept of a current technology which is shown in the status bar. This technology affects many things, including the selection of nodes and arcs in the component menu. There are a number of ways to affect the current technology, both manual and automatic.

Electric automatically switches the current technology to match the cell being edited. If there are multiple cells being edited from different technologies, this switching can become annoying. To disable automatic technology switching, use the "New Nodes" preferences (in menu File / Preferences..., "General" section, "New Nodes" tab), and uncheck "Switch technology to match current cell".

The "Technology" preferences (in menu File / Preferences..., "Technology" section, "Technology" tab) lets you control many general and specific technology settings. You can change the default current technology with the popup at the top of this dialog.

Besides remembering a default technology, Electric also remembers a default "layout" technology. This is a technology with real geometry (an integrated circuit technology, not a schematics or artwork technology) The default layout technology is used to give further information about schematics components (see the "Schematics" section at the bottom of the dialog).

To see a list of primitive nodes and arcs in the current technology, use the Describe this Technology command (in menu Edit / Info).

Some technologies have settable options that further customize them. The "Technology" preferences dialog lets you control these options. More information about this dialog is available from the individual technology sections on MOSIS CMOS (Section 7-4-2), Schematics (Section 7-5-1), and Artwork (Section 7-6-1). |