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Hierarchy and export

A cell becomes reusable once you place it inside another cell.

Compose a parent cell​

Add this after inset_rect:

cell triple_rect() {
    let first = inst(inset_rect(200., 200.), x=0., y=0.);
    let second = inst(inset_rect(240., 180.), x=300., y=0.);
    let third = inst(inset_rect(160., 260.), x=650., y=0.);
}

Save, then open triple_rect() from the canvas. The hierarchy sidebar lists the three instances under the root scope.

You can also place instances from the GUI: press I, type a cell invocation, and click to place it in the selected scope. Placement stays active so you can drop several copies; press Esc when you're done.

Format and check​

arc fmt
arc check

arc fmt --check reports unformatted files without changing them, which is useful in CI.

Export​

arc run --cell 'triple_rect()'

This writes the compiled cell to target/argon.bin. Add --gds to also write target/argon.gds:

arc run --cell 'triple_rect()' --gds
note

Quote the cell expression so the shell doesn't interpret the parentheses.

That's the end of the getting-started guide. Other guides are listed on the Guides page. From here, the language reference covers the rest of the language, and the GUI and tools books cover the editor and the command line in detail.