How to Create an Icon
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Creating icons from schematics in Electric can be very helpful to organize (visually) your schematics as they start to become more complex. Icons also help abstract the functionality of a circuit, helping with the overall understanding of your project.

Export Input and Output Variables
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Let's go over a simple circuit, a voltage divider, and create the icon for the schematic below. The inputs and outputs of your schematic should be exported with the create export command. In this case, I created a , and using that create export command. You can apply this command to a wire, Wire-Pin or an Off-Page component.

electricvlsi_create_export.png

Create Icon
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With your schematic selected, go to View -> Make Icon View

electricvlsi_make_icon.png

Electric will create a random icon with all the inputs and outputs that were exported and it will add a .ic file under the Explorer tab.

electricvlsi_make_icon_2.png

Edit Icon
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To edit the icon, go to the Explorer tab and double click on the .ic file.

electricvlsi_edit_icon.png

You can now use the Components tab to design/modify the icon to your taste. If you want to create icons that are not predefined shapes, you need a little bit more patience and reuse and modify some of default components to achieve the desired shape.

electricvlsi_edit_icon_2.png

The icon on the schematic gets updated automatically.

electricvlsi_edit_icon_3.png

Use Icon
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To use the new icon, create a new schematic and drag the icon as many as times as you want to your new design.

electricvlsi_use_icon.png

Simulate Icon
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You can use spice commands to simulate the circuit and validate if the icon was successfully created.

electricvlsi_simulate_icon.png

electricvlsi_simulate_icon_2.png

electricvlsi_write_spice_deck.png

electricvlsi_pspice_results.png

References
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