difference between an instance terminal, terminal, pin, and instance pin?

I am reading:
Integrator's Toolkit: Database Reference Manual, Product Version 5.0
Chapter 11
Connectivity

I am having difficulty understanding what the difference is between an
instance terminal, terminal, pin, and instance pin.

If I open up a layout I would expect that
dbGetWindowCellView()~>terminals~>name would match the schematic
terminals list. I notice that in some cases I have more terminals in
the layout if terminals were renamed. That is if a terminal in the
schematic was changed from "A" to "B" I see both "A" and "B" in the
layout terminal list.

When I get the dbGetWindowCellView()~>terminals~>pins~>name list I get
a list of terminals and numbers. I was expecting to see the same
number of pins as terminals with the pin names matching the terminal
names. What do the numbers represent in the pins list?

 

Erik,

To be honest you'd probably be better off reading the Design Framework II SKILL
functions manual - the ITK documentation is a little sparse, to say the least.

Terminals are the logical connections to a block; pins represent the physical
connections. When netlisting, it only uses the terminals - the pins don't really
have to be there.

Pins can either be symbolic (i.e. instances) or geometric (i.e. shapes). A
pin object in the database has a fig attribute which indicates the instance or
shape. It also has a term object which indicates the logical terminal.
Generally speaking the pin name is irrelevant - it has a name, but it is hardly
used for anything. The terminal name is the important thing. Bear in mind that
you can have multiple pins for the same terminal (for example, alternative
connections for a power pin).

An instance terminal is (as the name suggests) an object that represents the
connections to a particular terminal on a particular instance. For example, if
you have two instances, I1 and I2 of a symbol, nand2, with pins A,B and Z,
then there will be a total of 6 instTerms. Each instTerm indicates which
instance it belongs to, which terminal it belongs to, and which net is connected
to that instance terminal.

I don't believe there is anything special in the database for instance pins.

I suspect the extra terminals you are seeing are hangovers where VXL is
not cleaning up; this is a known problem, with a PCR, and I think is fixed
in IC5141 (if I remember rightly; I had a customer with the same problem).

Andrew.