This is the 17th installment of The Rationalist, my column for the Times of India.

One of my favourite English words comes from chess. If it is your turn to move, but any move you make makes your position worse, you are in ‘Zugzwang’. Narendra Modi was in zugzwang after the Pulwama attacks a few days ago—as any Indian prime minister in his place would have been.

An Indian PM, after an attack for which Pakistan is held responsible, has only unsavoury choices in front of him. He is pulled in two opposite directions. One, strategy dictates that he must not escalate. Two, politics dictates that he must.

Let’s unpack that. First, consider the strategic imperatives. Ever since both India and Pakistan became nuclear powers, a conventional war has become next to impossible because of the threat of a nuclear war. If India escalates beyond a point, Pakistan might bring their nuclear weapons into play. Even a limited nuclear war could cause millions of casualties and devastate our economy. Thus, no matter what the provocation, India needs to calibrate its response so that the Pakistan doesn’t take it all the way.

It’s impossible to predict what actions Pakistan might view as sufficient provocation, so India has tended to play it safe. Don’t capture territory, don’t attack military assets, don’t kill civilians. In other words, surgical strikes on alleged terrorist camps is the most we can do.

Given that Pakistan knows that it is irrational for India to react, and our leaders tend to be rational, they can ‘bleed us with a thousand cuts’, as their doctrine states, with impunity. Both in 2001, when our parliament was attacked and the BJP’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee was PM, and in 2008, when Mumbai was attacked and the Congress’s Manmohan Singh was PM, our leaders considered all the options on the table—but were forced to do nothing.

But is doing nothing an option in an election year?

Leave strategy aside and turn to politics. India has been attacked. Forty soldiers have been killed, and the nation is traumatised and baying for blood. It is now politically impossible to not retaliate—especially for a PM who has criticized his predecessor for being weak, and portrayed himself as a 56-inch-chested man of action.

I have no doubt that Modi is a rational man, and knows the possible consequences of escalation. But he also knows the possible consequences of not escalating—he could dilute his brand and lose the elections. Thus, he is forced to act. And after he acts, his Pakistan counterpart will face the same domestic pressure to retaliate, and will have to attack back. And so on till my home in Versova is swallowed up by a nuclear crater, right?

Well, not exactly. There is a way to resolve this paradox. India and Pakistan can both escalate, not via military actions, but via optics.

Modi and Imran Khan, who you’d expect to feel like the loneliest men on earth right now, can find sweet company in each other. Their incentives are aligned. Neither man wants this to turn into a full-fledged war. Both men want to appear macho in front of their domestic constituencies. Both men are masters at building narratives, and have a pliant media that will help them.

Thus, India can carry out a surgical strike and claim it destroyed a camp, killed terrorists, and forced Pakistan to return a braveheart prisoner of war. Pakistan can say India merely destroyed two trees plus a rock, and claim the high moral ground by returning the prisoner after giving him good masala tea. A benign military equilibrium is maintained, and both men come out looking like strong leaders: a win-win game for the PMs that avoids a lose-lose game for their nations. They can give themselves a high-five in private when they meet next, and Imran can whisper to Modi, “You’re a good spinner, bro.”

There is one problem here, though: what if the optics don’t work?

If Modi feels that his public is too sceptical and he needs to do more, he might feel forced to resort to actual military escalation. The fog of politics might obscure the possible consequences. If the resultant Indian military action causes serious damage, Pakistan will have to respond in kind. In the chain of events that then begins, with body bags piling up, neither man may be able to back down. They could end up as prisoners of circumstance—and so could we.

***

Also check out:

Why Modi Must Learn to Play the Game of Chicken With Pakistan—Amit Varma
The Two Pakistans—Episode 79 of The Seen and the Unseen
India in the Nuclear Age—Episode 80 of The Seen and the Unseen

The India Uncut Blog © 2010 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
Follow me on Twitter.

This is the 18th installment of The Rationalist, my column for the Times of India.

The man who gave us our national anthem, Rabindranath Tagore, once wrote that nationalism was “a great menace.” He went on to say, “It is the particular thing which for years has been at the bottom of India’s troubles.”

Not just India’s, but the world’s: In his book The Open Society and its Enemies, published in 1945 as Adolf Hitler was defeated, Karl Popper ripped into nationalism, with all its “appeals to our tribal instincts, to passion and to prejudice, and to our nostalgic desire to be relieved from the strain of individual responsibility which it attempts to replace by a collective or group responsibility.”

Nationalism is resurgent today, stomping across the globe hand-in-hand with populism. In India, too, it is tearing us apart. But must nationalism always be a bad thing? A provocative new book by the Israeli thinker Yael Tamir argues otherwise.

In her book Why Nationalism, Tamir makes the following arguments. One, nation-states are here to stay. Two, the state needs the nation to be viable. Three, people need nationalism for the sense of community and belonging it gives them. Four, therefore, we need to build a better nationalism, which brings people together instead of driving them apart.

The first point needs no elaboration. We are a globalised world, but we are also trapped by geography and circumstance. “Only 3.3 percent of the world’s population,” Tamir points out, “lives outside their country of birth.” Nutopia, the borderless state dreamed up by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, is not happening anytime soon.

If the only thing that citizens of a state have in common is geographical circumstance, it is not enough. If the state is a necessary construct, a nation is its necessary justification. “Political institutions crave to form long-term political bonding,” writes Tamir, “and for that matter they must create a community that is neither momentary nor meaningless.” Nationalism, she says, “endows the state with intimate feelings linking the past, the present, and the future.”

More pertinently, Tamir argues, people need nationalism. I am a humanist with a belief in individual rights, but Tamir says that this is not enough. “The term ‘human’ is a far too thin mode of delineation,” she writes. “Individuals need to rely on ‘thick identities’ to make their lives meaningful.” This involves a shared past, a common culture and distinctive values.

Tamir also points out that there is a “strong correlation between social class and political preferences.” The privileged elites can afford to be globalists, but those less well off are inevitably drawn to other narratives that enrich their lives. “Rather than seeing nationalism as the last refuge of the scoundrel,” writes Tamir, “we should start thinking of nationalism as the last hope of the needy.”

Tamir’s book bases its arguments on the West, but the argument holds in India as well. In a country with so much poverty, is it any wonder that nationalism is on the rise? The cosmopolitan, globe-trotting elites don’t have daily realities to escape, but how are those less fortunate to find meaning in their lives?

I have one question, though. Why is our nationalism so exclusionary when our nation is so inclusive?

In the nationalism that our ruling party promotes, there are some communities who belong here, and others who don’t. (And even among those who ‘belong’, they exploit divisions.) In their us-vs-them vision of the world, some religions are foreign, some values are foreign, even some culinary traditions are foreign – and therefore frowned upon. But the India I know and love is just the opposite of that.

We embrace influences from all over. Our language, our food, our clothes, our music, our cinema have absorbed so many diverse influences that to pretend they come from a single legit source is absurd. (Even the elegant churidar-kurtas our prime minister wears have an Islamic origin.) As an example, take the recent film Gully Boy: its style of music, the clothes its protagonists wear, even the attitudes in the film would have seemed alien to us a few decades ago. And yet, could there be a truer portrait of young India?

This inclusiveness, this joyous khichdi that we are, is what makes our nation a model for the rest of the world. No nation embraces all other nations as ours does. My India celebrates differences, and I do as well. I wear my kurta with jeans, I listen to ghazals, I eat dhansak and kababs, and I dream in the Indian language called English. This is my nationalism.

Those who try to divide us, therefore, are the true anti-nationals. We must reclaim nationalism from them.

The India Uncut Blog © 2010 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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This is the 20th installment of The Rationalist, my column for the Times of India.

Amit Shah’s induction into the union cabinet is such an interesting moment. Even partisans who oppose the BJP, as I do, would admit that Shah is a political genius. Under his leadership, the BJP has become an electoral behemoth in the most complicated political landscape in the world. The big question that now arises is this: can Shah do for India what he did for the BJP?

This raises a perplexing question: in the last five years, as the BJP has flourished, India has languished. And yet, the leadership of both the party and the nation are more or less the same. Then why hasn’t the ability to manage the party translated to governing the country?

I would argue that there are two reasons for this. One, the skills required in those two tasks are different. Two, so are the incentives in play.

Let’s look at the skills first. Managing a party like the BJP is, in some ways, like managing a large multinational company. Shah is a master at top-down planning and micro-management. How he went about winning the 2014 elections, described in detail in Prashant Jha’s book How the BJP Wins, should be a Harvard Business School case study. The book describes how he fixed the BJP’s ground game in Uttar Pradesh, picking teams for 147,000 booths in Uttar Pradesh, monitoring them, and keeping them accountable.

Shah looked at the market segmentation in UP, and hit upon his now famous “60% formula”. He realised he could not deliver the votes of Muslims, Yadavs and Jatavs, who were 40% of the population. So he focussed on wooing the other 60%, including non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits. He carried out versions of these caste reconfigurations across states, and according to Jha, covered “over 5 lakh kilometres” between 2014 and 2017, consolidating market share in every state in this country. He nurtured “a pool of a thousand new OBC and Dalit leaders”, going well beyond the posturing of other parties.

That so many Dalits and OBCs voted for the BJP in 2019 is astonishing. Shah went past Mandal politics, managing to subsume previously antagonistic castes and sub-castes into a broad Hindutva identity. And as the BJP increased its depth, it expanded its breadth as well. What it has done in West Bengal, wiping out the Left and weakening Mamata Banerjee, is jaw-dropping. With hindsight, it may one day seem inevitable, but only a madman could have conceived it, and only a genius could have executed it.

Good man to be Home Minister then, eh? Not quite. A country is not like a large company or even a political party. It is much too complex to be managed from the top down, and a control freak is bound to flounder. The approach needed is very different.

Some tasks of governance, it is true, are tailor-made for efficient managers. Building infrastructure, taking care of roads and power, building toilets (even without an underlying drainage system) and PR campaigns can all be executed by good managers. But the deeper tasks of making an economy flourish require a different approach. They need a light touch, not a heavy hand.

The 20th century is full of cautionary tales that show that economies cannot be centrally planned from the top down. Examples of that ‘fatal conceit’, to use my hero Friedrich Hayek’s term, include the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, and even the lady Modi most reminds me of, Indira Gandhi.

The task of the state, when it comes to the economy, is to administer a strong rule of law, and to make sure it is applied equally. No special favours to cronies or special interest groups. Just unleash the natural creativity of the people, and don’t try to micro-manage.

Sadly, the BJP’s impulse, like that of most governments of the past, is a statist one. India should have a small state that does a few things well. Instead, we have a large state that does many things badly, and acts as a parasite on its people.

As it happens, the few things that we should do well are all right up Shah’s managerial alley. For example, the rule of law is effectively absent in India today, especially for the poor. As Home Minister, Shah could fix this if he applied the same zeal to governing India as he did to growing the BJP. But will he?

And here we come to the question of incentives. What drives Amit Shah: maximising power, or serving the nation? What is good for the country will often coincide with what is good for the party – but not always. When they diverge, which path will Shah choose? So much rests on that.

The India Uncut Blog © 2010 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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This is the 21st installment of The Rationalist, my column for the Times of India.

When all political parties agree on something, you know you might have a problem. Giriraj Singh, a minister in Narendra Modi’s new cabinet, tweeted this week that our population control law should become a “movement.” This is something that would find bipartisan support – we are taught from school onwards that India’s population is a big problem, and we need to control it.

This is wrong. Contrary to popular belief, our population is not a problem. It is our greatest strength.

The notion that we should worry about a growing population is an intuitive one. The world has limited resources. People keep increasing. Something’s gotta give.

Robert Malthus made just this point in his 1798 book, An Essay on the Principle of Population. He was worried that our population would grow exponentially while resources would grow arithmetically. As more people entered the workforce, wages would fall and goods would become scarce. Calamity was inevitable.

Malthus’s rationale was so influential that this mode of thinking was soon called ‘Malthusian.’ (It is a pejorative today.) A 20th-century follower of his, Harrison Brown, came up with one of my favourite images on this subject, arguing that a growing population would lead to the earth being “covered completely and to a considerable depth with a writhing mass of human beings, much as a dead cow is covered with a pulsating mass of maggots.”

Another Malthusian, Paul Ehrlich, published a book called The Population Bomb in 1968, which began with the stirring lines, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” Ehrlich was, as you’d guess, a big supporter of India’s coercive family planning programs. ““I don’t see,” he wrote, “how India could possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980.”

None of these fears have come true. A 2007 study by Nicholas Eberstadt called ‘Too Many People?’ found no correlation between population density and poverty. The greater the density of people, the more you’d expect them to fight for resources – and yet, Monaco, which has 40 times the population density of Bangladesh, is doing well for itself. So is Bahrain, which has three times the population density of India.

Not only does population not cause poverty, it makes us more prosperous. The economist Julian Simon pointed out in a 1981 book that through history, whenever there has been a spurt in population, it has coincided with a spurt in productivity. Such as, for example, between Malthus’s time and now. There were around a billion people on earth in 1798, and there are around 7.7 billion today. As you read these words, consider that you are better off than the richest person on the planet then.

Why is this? The answer lies in the title of Simon’s book: The Ultimate Resource. When we speak of resources, we forget that human beings are the finest resource of all. There is no limit to our ingenuity. And we interact with each other in positive-sum ways – every voluntary interactions leaves both people better off, and the amount of value in the world goes up. This is why we want to be part of economic networks that are as large, and as dense, as possible. This is why most people migrate to cities rather than away from them – and why cities are so much richer than towns or villages.

If Malthusians were right, essential commodities like wheat, maize and rice would become relatively scarcer over time, and thus more expensive – but they have actually become much cheaper in real terms. This is thanks to the productivity and creativity of humans, who, in Eberstadt’s words, are “in practice always renewable and in theory entirely inexhaustible.”

The error made by Malthus, Brown and Ehrlich is the same error that our politicians make today, and not just in the context of population: zero-sum thinking. If our population grows and resources stays the same, of course there will be scarcity. But this is never the case. All we need to do to learn this lesson is look at our cities!

This mistaken thinking has had savage humanitarian consequences in India. Think of the unborn millions over the decades because of our brutal family planning policies. How many Tendulkars, Rahmans and Satyajit Rays have we lost? Think of the immoral coercion still carried out on poor people across the country. And finally, think of the condescension of our politicians, asserting that people are India’s problem – but always other people, never themselves.

This arrogance is India’s greatest problem, not our people.

The India Uncut Blog © 2010 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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This is the 23rd installment of The Rationalist, my column for the Times of India.

I had a strange dream last night. I dreamt that the government had passed a law that made using laptops illegal. I would have to write this column by hand. I would also have to leave my home in Mumbai to deliver it in person to my editor in Delhi. I woke up trembling and angry – and realised how Indian farmers feel every single day of their lives.

My column today is a tale of two satyagrahas. Both involve farmers, technology and the freedom of choice. One of them began this month – but first, let us go back to the turn of the millennium.

As the 1990s came to an end, cotton farmers across India were in distress. Pests known as bollworms were ravaging crops across the country. Farmers had to use increasing amounts of pesticide to keep them at bay. The costs of the pesticide and the amount of labour involved made it unviable – and often, the crops would fail anyway.

Then, technology came to the rescue. The farmers heard of Bt Cotton, a genetically modified type of cotton that kept these pests away, and was being used around the world. But they were illegal in India, even though no bad effects had ever been recorded. Well, who cares about ‘illegal’ when it is a matter of life and death?

Farmers in Gujarat got hold of Bt Cotton seeds from the black market and planted them. You’ll never guess what happened next. As 2002 began, all cotton crops in Gujarat failed – except the 10,000 hectares that had Bt Cotton. The government did not care about the failed crops. They cared about the ‘illegal’ ones. They ordered all the Bt Cotton crops to be destroyed.

It was time for a satyagraha – and not just in Gujarat. The late Sharad Joshi, leader of the Shetkari Sanghatana in Maharashtra, took around 10,000 farmers to Gujarat to stand with their fellows there. They sat in the fields of Bt Cotton and basically said, ‘Over our dead bodies.’ ¬Joshi’s point was simple: all other citizens of India have access to the latest technology from all over. They are all empowered with choice. Why should farmers be held back?

The satyagraha was successful. The ban on Bt Cotton was lifted.

There are three things I would like to point out here. One, the lifting of the ban transformed cotton farming in India. Over 90% of Indian farmers now use Bt Cotton. India has become the world’s largest producer of cotton, moving ahead of China. According to agriculture expert Ashok Gulati, India has gained US$ 67 billion in the years since from higher exports and import savings because of Bt Cotton. Most importantly, cotton farmers’ incomes have doubled.

Two, GMO crops have become standard across the world. Around 190 million hectares of GMO crops have been planted worldwide, and GMO foods are accepted in 67 countries. The humanitarian benefits have been massive: Golden Rice, a variety of rice packed with minerals and vitamins, has prevented blindness in countless new-born kids since it was introduced in the Philippines.

Three, despite the fear-mongering of some NGOs, whose existence depends on alarmism, the science behind GMO is settled. No harmful side effects have been noted in all these years, and millions of lives impacted positively. A couple of years ago, over 100 Nobel Laureates signed a petition asserting that GMO foods were safe, and blasting anti-science NGOs that stood in the way of progress. There is scientific consensus on this.

The science may be settled, but the politics is not. The government still bans some types of GMO seeds, such as Bt Brinjal, which was developed by an Indian company called Mahyco, and used successfully in Bangladesh. More crucially, a variety called HT Bt Cotton, which fights weeds, is also banned. Weeding takes up to 15% of a farmer’s time, and often makes farming unviable. Farmers across the world use this variant – 60% of global cotton crops are HT Bt. Indian farmers are so desperate for it that they choose to break the law and buy expensive seeds from the black market – but the government is cracking down. A farmer in Haryana had his crop destroyed by the government in May.

On June 10 this year, a farmer named Lalit Bahale in the Akola District of Maharashtra kicked off a satyagraha by planting banned seeds of HT Bt Cotton and Bt Brinjal. He was soon joined by thousands of farmers. Far from our urban eyes, a heroic fight has begun. Our farmers, already victimised and oppressed by a predatory government in countless ways, are fighting for their right to take charge of their lives.

As this brave struggle unfolds, I am left with a troubling question: All those satyagrahas of the past by our great freedom fighters, what were they for, if all they got us was independence and not freedom?

The India Uncut Blog © 2010 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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Read on to know about the Operating Point Parameters Summary window that gives you a one-stop view of the categorized and tabulated details on all operating point parameters in your design. This window improves your review cycle with its many benefits.(read more)

During a mixed-signal simulation, the analog engine usually dominates the simulation time and resources. If you need to run only the analog engine in several windows, or if you would like to to run multiple tests of the same circuit with different stimuli or test pattern, then you need to run the simulation multiple times. View this blog to know more about the the two advanced technologies that Spectre AMS Designer provides to help you improve the efficiency of your mixed-signal designs and to increase the simulation speed.(read more)

This blog describes an efficient way to name the histories saved by the simulation runs in Virtuoso ADE Assembler.(read more)

Read this blog to know how you can easily create and insert connect modules using Spectre AMS Designer with the Verilog-AMS standard language defined by Accellera. (read more)

Have you ever wanted to write a DRC rule deck to check for space or width constraints on polygons? Or have you wondered how the multiple lines of an LVS rule deck extract and conduct a comparison between the schematic and layout? Maybe you've been curious about the role of rule deck writers in creating high-quality designs ready for tape-out.

If any of these questions interest you, there is good news: the latest version (v23.1) of the Physical Verification Rules Writer (PVLRW) course is designed to teach you rule deck writing. This free 16-hour online course includes audio and labs designed to make your learning experience comfortable and flexible. Whether you are new to the concept or an experienced CAD/PDK engineer, the course is structured to enhance your rule deck writing skills.

The PVLRW course covers six core modules: Layer Processing, DRC Rules, Layout Extraction, ERC and LVS Rules, Schematic Netlisting, and Coloring Rules. There are also three optional appendix sections. Each module explains relevant rules with syntax, concepts, graphics, examples, and case studies.

This course is based on tool versions PEGASUS231 and Virtuoso Studio IC231.

Pegasus Input and Output

Pegasus is a cloud-ready physical verification signoff solution that enables engineers to support faster delivery of advanced-node integrated circuits (ICs) to market.

Pegasus requires input data in the form of layout geometry, schematic netlists, and rules that direct the tool operation. The rules fall into two categories: those that describe the fabrication process and those that control the job-specific operation.

Pegasus provides log and report files, netlists, databases, and error databases as output.

Overview of Pegasus Rule File

The rule decks written in Physical Verification Language (PVL) work for the Cadence PV signoff tools Pegasus and PVS (Physical Verification System).   

The PVL rules are placed in a file that gets selected in a run from the GUI or the command line, as the user directs. PVL rules may be on separate lines within the file and can also be contained in named rule blocks.

Each line of code starts with a PVL rule that uses prefix type notation. It consists of a keyword followed by options, input layer or variable names, and output layer or variable names.

A rule block has the format of the keyword rule, followed by a rule name you wish to give it, followed by an opening curly brace. You enter the rules you wish to perform, followed by a closing curly brace on the last separate line.

  Sample Rule deck with individual lines of code and rule blocks.

DRC Rules

The first step in a typical Pegasus flow is a Design Rule Check (DRC), which verifies that layout geometries conform to the minimum width, spacing, and other fabrication process rules required by an IC foundry. Each foundry specifies its own process-dependent rules that must be met by the layout design.

There are three types of DRC rules: layer definition rules, layer derivation rules, and DRC design check rules. Layer definition rules identify the layers contained in the input layout database, and layer derivation rules derive additional layers from the original input layers, allowing the tool to test the design against specific foundry requirements using the design check rules.

A sample DRC Rule deck

A layout view displaying the DRC violations

LVS Rules

The Pegasus Layout Versus Schematic (LVS) tool compares the layout netlist with the schematic netlist to check for discrepancies.

There are two essential LVS rule sets: LVS extraction rules and comparison rules. LVS extraction rules help extract drawn devices and connectivity information from the input layout geometry data and outputs into a layout netlist. The LVS extraction rule set also includes the layer definition, derivation, extraction, connectivity, and net listing rules.

LVS comparison rules are associated with comparing the extracted layout netlist to a schematic netlist.

A sample LVS Rule deck. 

TCL, Macros, and Conditional commands

Tcl is supported and used in various Pegasus functionalities, such as Pegasus rule files and Pegasus configurator. Macros are functional templates that are defined once and can be used multiple times in a rule file. Conditional Commands are used to process or skip specific commands in the rule file.

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Related Resources

About Knowledge Booster Training Bytes

Knowledge Booster Training Bytes is an online journal that relays information about Cadence Training videos, online courses, and upcoming webinars in the Learning section of the Cadence Learning and Support portal. This blog category brings you direct links to these videos, courses, and other related material on a regular basis. Subscribe to receive email notifications about our latest Custom IC Design blog posts.

Read this blog to know more about the innovation behind Universal Connect Modules (UCM).(read more)

Hello Fellow PCB Designers,

We have a 10 layer PCB design that originated in Pads and was converted over to Allegro 17.4, this is an old design but is manufacturable and works perfectly fine.  When I try to generate a Gerber for the Top or Bottom layers

the Gerber comes out fine.  But Most of the middle layers are Etch's and via's for power and grounds, but the Gerber's come mostly blank, there might be some details, but in the Gerber view everything is displayed correctly.

The design does have many close spacings, I have not changed anything in the constrains manager yet, turned off a lot of the DRC's, but thinking there might be something wrong with the constrains.

  I find that the CSet is set to 2_18, not sure yet what this means, also there are many of these definitions, PCS 3,4,5,ect, are the same as CSet 2_18 any suggestions would be great, we are currently looking into this, have seen

that even small change in constraint manager can cause long processing and even Allegro crashing, this is a large project.

Thanks Much, Thanks, Mike Pollock.

1， Some components in the installation package cannot choose to install; even if they do not choose them, they will still be installed; just less shortcut icons, the documents are still released to the installation directory.

2， "Catia Application Frame" repeat the problem?
       “x:CadenceSPB_17.4 oolsin“
       ”x:CadenceSPB_17.4 oolsspatial“
       "Catia Application Frame" shouldn't you use the latest version?

3，Follow-up update patch cleaning the useless files and extra empty folder action !!!

The SPB17.4 installation package is currently the worst installation package I have seen for large-scale software packaging.

How do we purge/remove the duplicated vias in the same location of the PCB editor? These vias are not the one stacked and they are just blind vias running in internal layers 12-14. I find there is an additional copy of the blind via at the same location. Not sure what caused this issue.

Hi All

I am looking for the functions which are different about OrCAD Professional and Allegro tier.

is there any resource?

regard

The default position of the pin number is incorrect.

I have managed to convert our old schematic and PCD file to from Layout 16.2 to 17.4

I have exported the footprints and moved them to the correct lib directory. 

I get no DRC errors and I can build a new netlist file. The problem is I can't get the PCB editor to update using the new netlist and get the following error:

I cannot figure out how to fix the Name is too long error. 

(---------------------------------------------------------------------)

(                                                                     )

(    Allegro Netrev Import Logic                                      )

(                                                                     )

(    Drawing          : 70055R2.brd                                   )

(    Software Version : 17.4S023                                      )

(    Date/Time        : Tue Dec 14 18:54:25 2021                      )

(                                                                     )

(---------------------------------------------------------------------)

------ Directives ------------

Ripup etch:                  Yes

Ripup delete first segment:  No

Ripup retain bondwire:       No

Ripup symbols:               IfSame

Missing symbol has error:    No

DRC update:                  Yes

Schematic directory:         'C:/AFS/70055 PCB Test 2'

Design Directory:            'C:/AFS/70055 PCB Test 2'

Old design name:             'C:/AFS/70055 PCB Test 2/70055R2.brd'

New design name:             'C:/AFS/70055 PCB Test 2/70055R2.brd'

CmdLine: netrev -$ -i C:/AFS/70055 PCB Test 2 -x -u -t -y 2 -h -z -q netrev_constraint_report.xml C:/AFS/70055 PCB Test 2/#Taaaaae57776.tmp

------ Preparing to read pst files ------

Starting to read C:/AFS/70055 PCB Test 2/pstchip.dat 

   Finished reading C:/AFS/70055 PCB Test 2/pstchip.dat (00:00:00.02)

Starting to read C:/AFS/70055 PCB Test 2/pstxprt.dat 

   Finished reading C:/AFS/70055 PCB Test 2/pstxprt.dat (00:00:00.00)

Starting to read C:/AFS/70055 PCB Test 2/pstxnet.dat 

   Finished reading C:/AFS/70055 PCB Test 2/pstxnet.dat (00:00:00.00)

------ Oversights/Warnings/Errors ------

#1   ERROR(SPMHNI-176): Device library error detected.

ERROR(SPMHNI-189): Problems with the name of device 'SW DPDT_9_SWITCH_OTTO_ALT_SW DPDT': 'Name is too long.'.

ERROR(SPMHNI-170): Device 'SW DPDT_9_SWITCH_OTTO_ALT_SW DP' has library errors. Unable to transfer to Allegro.

#2   ERROR(SPMHNI-176): Device library error detected.

ERROR(SPMHNI-189): Problems with the name of device 'SW DPDT_10_SWITCH_OTTO_LIGHTS_SW DPDT': 'Name is too long.'.

ERROR(SPMHNI-170): Device 'SW DPDT_10_SWITCH_OTTO_LIGHTS_S' has library errors. Unable to transfer to Allegro.

#3   ERROR(SPMHNI-176): Device library error detected.

ERROR(SPMHNI-189): Problems with the name of device 'SW DPDT_7_SWITCH_OTTO_ALT_SW DPDT': 'Name is too long.'.

ERROR(SPMHNI-170): Device 'SW DPDT_7_SWITCH_OTTO_ALT_SW DP' has library errors. Unable to transfer to Allegro.

#4   ERROR(SPMHNI-176): Device library error detected.

ERROR(SPMHNI-189): Problems with the name of device 'SW DPDT_3_SWITCH_OTTO_MASTER_SW DPDT': 'Name is too long.'.

ERROR(SPMHNI-170): Device 'SW DPDT_3_SWITCH_OTTO_MASTER_SW' has library errors. Unable to transfer to Allegro.

#5   ERROR(SPMHNI-176): Device library error detected.

ERROR(SPMHNI-189): Problems with the name of device 'SW DPDT_6_SWITCH_OTTO_LIGHTS_SW DPDT': 'Name is too long.'.

ERROR(SPMHNI-170): Device 'SW DPDT_6_SWITCH_OTTO_LIGHTS_SW' has library errors. Unable to transfer to Allegro.

#6   ERROR(SPMHNI-176): Device library error detected.

ERROR(SPMHNI-189): Problems with the name of device 'SW DPDT_3_SWITCH_OTTO_MASTER_DPDT': 'Name is too long.'.

ERROR(SPMHNI-170): Device 'SW DPDT_3_SWITCH_OTTO_MASTER_DP' has library errors. Unable to transfer to Allegro.

#7   ERROR(SPMHNI-176): Device library error detected.

ERROR(SPMHNI-189): Problems with the name of device 'CONNECTOR DB15_DSUBVPTM15_CONNECTOR DB15': 'Name is too long.'.

ERROR(SPMHNI-170): Device 'CONNECTOR DB15_DSUBVPTM15_CONNE' has library errors. Unable to transfer to Allegro.

#8   ERROR(SPMHNI-176): Device library error detected.

ERROR(SPMHNI-189): Problems with the name of device 'CONNECTOR DB9_DSUBVPTM9_CONNECTOR DB9': 'Name is too long.'.

ERROR(SPMHNI-170): Device 'CONNECTOR DB9_DSUBVPTM9_CONNECT' has library errors. Unable to transfer to Allegro.

#9   ERROR(SPMHNI-175): Netrev error detected.

ERROR(SPMHDB-195): Error processing 'M6': Text line is outside of the extents..

------ Library Paths ------

MODULEPATH =  . 

           C:/Cadence/SPB_17.4/share/local/pcb/modules 

PSMPATH =  . 

           symbols 

           .. 

           ../symbols 

           C:/Cadence/SPB_17.4/share/local/pcb/symbols 

           C:/Cadence/SPB_17.4/share/pcb/pcb_lib/symbols 

           C:/Cadence/SPB_17.4/share/pcb/allegrolib/symbols 

           C:/Cadence/SPB_17.4/share/pcb/pcb_lib/symbols 

PADPATH =  . 

           symbols 

           .. 

           ../symbols 

           C:/Cadence/SPB_17.4/share/local/pcb/padstacks 

           C:/Cadence/SPB_17.4/share/pcb/pcb_lib/symbols 

           C:/Cadence/SPB_17.4/share/pcb/allegrolib/symbols 

           C:/Cadence/SPB_17.4/share/pcb/pcb_lib/symbols 

------ Summary Statistics ------

#10  Run stopped because errors were detected

netrev run on Dec 14 18:54:25 2021

   DESIGN NAME : '70055R2'

   PACKAGING ON Nov  2 2021 14:32:04

   COMPILE 'logic'

   CHECK_PIN_NAMES OFF

   CROSS_REFERENCE OFF

   FEEDBACK OFF

   INCREMENTAL OFF

   INTERFACE_TYPE PHYSICAL

   MAX_ERRORS 500

   MERGE_MINIMUM 5

   NET_NAME_CHARS '#%&()*+-./:=>?@[]^_`|'

   NET_NAME_LENGTH 24

   OVERSIGHTS ON

   REPLACE_CHECK OFF

   SINGLE_NODE_NETS ON

   SPLIT_MINIMUM 0

   SUPPRESS   20

   WARNINGS ON

 10 errors detected

 No oversight detected

 No warning detected

cpu time      0:00:27

elapsed time  0:00:00

Hello. I am using Cadence 17.4 tools. When I open a package symbol (.dra) or board file (.brd) in Allegro that was created in an older version of the tool I get a message like this one (as expected):

"The design created using release 17.2 will be updated for compatibility with the current software..."

If I create a symbol or board file from scratch in the 17.4 tool then open it later, I get the same message. (always referring to version 17.2 which is the previous version I was using here).

So far this has not caused me any problems, but I would like to understand why it is doing this in case I have something setup incorrectly.

I only have version 17.4 installed. I am not exporting to a downrev version when I save (i.e. not using File->Export->Downrev design…) and in User Preferences->Drawing I don’t have anything selected for database_compatibility_mode. What else might I check?

FYI here is the tool version information that I see after selecting Help->About Symbol:

OrCAD PCB Designer Standard 17.4-2019 S012 [10/26/2020] Windows SPB 64-bit Edition

Thanks -Jason

When using Shape > Create Bounding Shape on an arc, the outer side works well, but on the inner side it just draws a straight line from the begging to the end of the curve.  Is anyone aware of a fix for this?

I'm attaching  a picture as an example, it works great on lines.

Hi,

I have a question about printing noise summary via maestro output expressions.

How can I print noise data using output expressions, for multiple levels of the hierarchy?

I have found this article which describe the procedure using ocnGenNoiseSummary() function: https://support.cadence.com/apex/ArticleAttachmentPortal?id=a1Od0000007MViHEAW&pageName=ArticleContent

I see also Andrew Beckett referring to the above mentioned article as a solution to a similar question: community.cadence.com/.../noise-summary-per-instance

However, this seems to work only if I'm to extract noise data from a single level of hierarchy.

If I have the output expression "ocnGenNoiseSummary(2 ?result 'hbnoise)", it will generate a "noisesummary" directory under results directory for a hierarchy level of 2.

If I am to extract data from various hierarchy levels, I should be able to generate multiple noise summary directories, such as noisesummary1, noisesummary2 where they correspond to "ocnGenNoiseSummary(1 ?result 'hbnoise)" & "ocnGenNoiseSummary(2 ?result 'hbnoise)", respectively. However this does not seem to be possible.

Can you please advice? Thanks.

My Cadence version: IC23.1-64b.ISR7.27

BR,

Denizhan Karaca

Hi

In the environment I'm currently working, axes are shown for schematic, symbol, and layout views.For schematics and symbols, I'd prefer a dim gray, such that the axes are just visible but not dominant. For the layout, I'd prefer a brighter color. Is there a way to realize this? So far when I change the color of the 'axis' layer in the display resource editor, the axes in all three views get changed together:

Thanks very much for your input!

Dear all,

I defined two design variables in ADE Assembler, say V1 and V2, that define the voltage 1 and voltage 2 of a "vpulse" voltage source in my schematic.

Then, I define V1 = 1.0, and V2 = 2.0, run a transient simulation, and everything is as expexcted. The source provides pulses between 1.0 V and 2.0 V.

Next, I set V1 = 1.0:0.5:1.5, thereby creating a parametric sweep with 1.0 V and 1.5 V for V1. I keep V2 at 2.0 V. Then the simulation fails, and all I get is "netl err" in my Output Expressions and an error message that the results directory does not exist and nothing can be plotted: This is reasonable, as the results directory is deleted on starting a new simulation, and as there is no simulation result, none of my output expressions can be plotted.

WARNING (OCN-6040): The specified directory does not exist, or the directory does not contain valid PSF results.
        Ensure that the path to the directory is correct and the directory has a logFile and PSF result files.
WARNING (ADE-1065): No simulation results are available.
ERROR (WIA-1175): Cannot plot waveform signals because no waveform data is available for plotting.
One of the possible reasons can be that 'Save' check box for these signals are not selected in the Outputs Setup pane. Ensure that these check boxes are selected before you run the simulation.

Normally, this kind of para,metric sweep is not a problem, I have done this many times before. There must be something special in THIS PARTICULAR test bench or simulator setup. The trouble is, I don't get any useful error messages.

Does anyone know what might be the problem here OR where to find useful information to investigate further (log files stored somewhere)? Thank you!

Regards,

Volker

P.S. Using Corners instead does not help either. Running it through all values by hand works, though.

Hi, 

When I try to run Monte Carlo it gives me a 3 items message for possible failure:

1. It says the machine selected in the current job setup policy isnot reachable

2. The Cadence hierarchy is not detected, not installed properly. or

3. Job start script (with a path and a name like swiftNetlistService#) is not found on the remote machines.

Any recommendation on how to fix this?

I need to add a new CDF parameter called "mag" to symbols in a given library using skill script in which the symbol size can be controlled and call back it each time this library is used so that all the symbols are updated.

Hello Everybody

Recently, I want to design a high output Power Amplifier at 2.4GHz using TSMC 1P6M CMOS Bulk Process. I use its nmos_rf_25_6t transistor model to determine the approximate mosfet size

I use the most common Common-Source Differential Amplifier topology with neutralizing capacitor to improve its stability and power gain performance

Because I want to output large power, the size of mosfet is very large, the gate width is about 2mm, when I perform harmonic balance analysis, everything is alright, the OP1dB is about 28dBm (0.63Watt)

But When I perform Transient simulation, the magnitude of voltage and current waveform at the saturation point is too small, for voltgae, Vpeaking is about 50mV, for current, Ipeaking is about 5mA

I assume some reasons: the bsim4 model is not complete/ the virtuoso version is wrong (My virtuoso version is IC6.1.7-64b.500.21)/the spectre version is wrong (spectre version is 15.1.0 32bit)/the MMSIM version is wrong/Transient Simulation setting is wrong (the algorithm is select gear2only, but when I select other, like: trap, the results have no difference), the maxstep I set 5ps, minstep I set 2ps to improve simulation speed, I think this step is much smaller than the fundamental period (1/2.4e9≈416ps)

I have no idea how to solve this problem, please help me! Thank you very very much!

Hello,
I'm trying to characterize a full adder that use transmission gate.
Unfortunately, the power calculation are wrong for the cell are always negative.
Is there any method or commands that can can help in power calculation or add the power consumption by the input pins to the power calculation ?
Another question, Is liberate support the characterization or transmission gate cells as standard cells or I should use liberate AMS for these type of cells ?
Thanks in advance,
Tareq 

Hello everyone, 
I have a testbench for generating s2p files from a SP simulation that was working until few months ago. Today I have reopened (w/o making changes that I am aware of) and I get the error as shown below:

first I show the testbench settings:

notice how the s2p generation is disabled: the field "file" is left blank

in the corner I defined some parameters, "filename" is the word that is suppose to generate the name for the s2p. 

where the two variables are defined as follows

And now the output log:

spectre.out file gives the following error:


When clicking on the error message at "9", the input.scs file opens up and the line 9 gets highlighted in green



now, so far I understood that the problem seem to be related tom the "pathcds" variable, but I really don't understand what the error message here means, since I don't see any error in the input.scs file

by the way - if for instance I define the variable "filename" as shown below, then I get no errors:

thanks
Tommaso

Hi

I have a rather strange question - is there a way to tell layout XL to NOT place the error/warning markers on a design when I open a cell?  I do a lot of my layout by using arrays from placed instances and create mosaics that completely ignore the metadata that Layout XL uses with its bindings with schematic (and instances get deleted etc. but I do like using it to generate all my pins etc.) and it's just really annoying when I open a design that I know is LVS clean and since the connectivity metadata is all screwed up (because I did not use it to actually complete the layout) I have a design that's just blinking at me at every gate, source and drain.  I typically delete them at the high level heirarchically but the second I go in and modify something and come back up it places all of them again.  I know that if I flatten all the p cells it goes away but sometimes it's nice to have that piece of metadata but that's about it.  Is there a way to "break" the features of XL like this?  I realize what a weird question this is but it's becoming more of an issue since we moved to IC 23 from IC 6 where there is no longer a layout L that I can use free from these annoyances that can't use any of the connectivity metadata.

Thanks

Chris

Hello everyone,

I hope you're all doing well. I’ve set up two testbenches (TB1 and TB2) for my Design Under Test (DUT) using Cadence IC6.1.8-64b.500.21 tools, as shown in the attached figure. The DUT has multiple views available: schematic, Calibre, Maestro, and Symbol, and each testbench uses the same DUT in different scenarios. Currently, I have to manually switch between these views, but I would like to streamline this process.

My goal is to use a single config view that allows me to switch between the schematic and the extracted (Calibre) views. Ideally, I would like to have a configuration file where making changes once would update both testbenches (TB1 and TB2) automatically. In other words, when I modify one config, both testbenches should reflect this update for a single simulation run.

I would really appreciate it if you could guide me on the following:

1. How to create a config view for my DUT that can be used to easily switch between the schematic and extracted views, impacting both TB1 and TB2.
2. Where to specify view priorities or other settings to control which view is used during simulation.
3. Best practices for using a config file in this scenario, so that it ensures consistency across multiple testbenches.

Please refer to the attached figure to get a better understanding of the setup I’m using, where both TB1 and TB2 include the same DUT with multiple available views.

Thank you so much for your time and assistance!

I want to use jaspergold to formally verify functionality of my custom multiplier. I am computing the expected result using A*B to check against output of my multiplier. Here, A and B are two logic signed operands. However, jaspergold is performing the operation A*B incorrectly.

I have reproduced this issue using the attached example. JasperGold compiles and elaborates the module and subsequently runs a formal proof. The tool raises a counterexample to assertion whose screenshot is attached below:

I simulated the same example using xrun and it was giving the correct product output in simvision waveform. Please help me resolve this issue. I am using 2023.03 version of Jasper Apps.

Thanks and regards

Anubhav Agarwal

I'm trying to use Jasper for checking parameter propagation in a large design. I have a list of top-level parameters, each with a HDL path of a module parameter somewhere lower in the hierarchy that's supposed to receive its value from the top-level module. The FPV app seems like an excellent tool for this, but elaborating the entire design in it is extremely time-consuming and memory-intensive. So, I'm trying to black-box everything but the interesting HDL paths. I thought using `elaborate -top dut_module_name -bbox_i * -no_bbox_i inst_foo -no_bbox_i inst_bar (...)` would work, but it doesn't. Jasper just starts flooding the log with warnings from modules that are definitely not on the whitebox list, and eventually dies due to insufficient memory. When I use -bbox_m * it correctly elaborates the top-level module with all of its sub-modules black-boxed. But then the -no_bbox_i switches have no effect. Could anyone suggest a working solution for this use case?

I'm completely new to Cadence. I've been able to run a very simple simulation with the -gui option. Simvision opens, I add the variables to the waveform viewer, and press run. All is good.

I don't understand the flow when using the -nogui option. It appears that the simulation runs and returns control to the OS. When I launch Simvision, is there a database or file that I can open to display the already-simulated data?

My command is of the form:

xrun -gui -64bit -sv -access +rwc -top tb_top.sv <src files>

I exported vplan to .odf file in vManager and after editing it I imported it to vManager. The vplan was expected to be synchronized and updated. However, nothing has changed to it. Does anyone know why?

When analyzing multiple sessions simultaneously Verisium Manager crashed and reported below error messages:

# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:
#
#  SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0x00007efc52861b74, pid=14182, tid=18380
#
# JRE version: OpenJDK Runtime Environment Temurin-17.0.3+7 (17.0.3+7) (build 17.0.3+7)
# Java VM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Temurin-17.0.3+7 (17.0.3+7, mixed mode, sharing, tiered, compressed oops, compressed class ptrs, g1 gc, linux-amd64)
# Problematic frame:
# C  [libucis.so+0x238b74]

......

For more details please refer to the attached log file "hs_err_pid21143.log".

Two approaches were tried to solve this problem but neither has worked.
Method.1:

Setting larger heap size of Java process by "-memlimit" options.For example "vmanager -memlimit 8G".

Method.2:

Enlarging stack memory size limit of the Coverage engine by setting "IMC_NATIVE_STACKSIZE" environment variable to a larger value. For example "setenv IMC_NATIVE_STACKSIZE 1024000"

According to "hs_err_pid*.log" it is almost certain that the memory overflow triggered Java's CrashOnOutOfMemoryError and caused Verisium Manager to crash. There are some arguments about memory management of Java like "Xms, Xmx, ThreadStackSize, Xss5048k etc" and maybe this problem can be fixed by setting these arguments during analysis. However, how exactly does Verisium Manager specify these arguments during analysis? I tried to set them by the form of setting environment variables before analysis but it didn't work in analysis and their values didn't change.

Is there something wrong with my operation or is there a better solution?

Thank you very much.

First time user of JasperGold. Chip level verif. I want to prove that an arbiter and a buffer are connected. I want to use the connectivity app to do that.

I see from the user guide, that I should provide a connectivity map, but i have no idea how to construct one.
The training videos said use this command: check_conn -generate_template jasper_template.xlsm -xlsm
But that did nothing, or at least it did not produce a file that i could find

[<embedded>] % check_conn -generate_template jasper_template.xlsm -xlsm
ERROR (ESW104): Invalid command formation.
Problem occurs with "-generate_template -xlsm".

And even if it did, I don't even know what's in the file, and whether it contains the two ips I'm trying to check.

I'm hoping someone can give me a bit of a boost here with some knowledge.

I want to do a 2-step build->simulate as follow:

1. Make multiple builds using xrun -elaborate [other options]. The purpose is to create multiple builds with different compile-time macros (+define+MACROA +define+MACROB=ABC). Each build is located in a different directory.

2. Run simulation with xrun -r. This is where I need help. How do I specify which build to simulate? Also, I need the simulation directory (with log files, …) to be different than the build directory.

Has anyone been able to achieve this or similar solutions?

Hello,

I have a question about toggle coverage.

In my case, there are many unused registers or wires that are affecting the toggle coverage score negatively.

Is it possible to automatically exclude registers or wires that are not used from toggle coverage?

My RTL code is as follows, Is it possible to automatically disable tb.top1.b and tb.top1.c without using an exclude file?

module top1;

  reg a;

  reg b;

  reg [31:0] c;

  initial

  begin

  #1 a=1'b0;

  #1 a=1'b1;

  #1 a=1'b0;

  end

endmodule

module tb;

  top1 top1();

endmodule

We are trying to run compilation, elab and sim with command xrun -r -u alu, where alu is one of the units to execute. we are getting the following errors.

1) xmsim: *E,DLMKDF: Unable to add default DEFINE std       /home/xxxx/Cad/xcelium/tools/inca/files/STD.
    xmsim: *E,DLMKDF: Unable to add default DEFINE synopsys  /home/xxxx/Cad/xcelium/tools/inca/files/SYNOPSYS

2) xmsim: *W,DLNOHV: Unable to find an 'hdl.var' file to load in.

What is the purpose of hdl.var

3) xmsim: *F,NOSNAP: Snapshot 'alu' does not exist in the libraries.

I cannot see in log files, which libraries is it referring to??

Any one request you to help on how to debug these.

Hi, I'm using the xcelium simulator to simulate a testbench, in which I first stimulate my design to do something (part "A") and then do a direct follow-up test on the design (part "B").

I need two things from this testbench: the results of the test (part "B", passed/failed) and coverage information, but the coverage information should only include part A and explicitly not part B.

I could do the following: run the testbench with part A and B, get the "passed/failed" result of the test and then follow up another simulator run with another testbench, that only includes part A and get the coverage information from that simulation run.

Is there a way to force xcelium to give me the coverage information of only a part of the simulation? Ideally, I would like to write the verilog code of my testbench to look something like this:

• do A
• dump coverage information
• do B

But maybe there is another way to tell xcelium to consider only part of the testbench for the coverage information. I did have a look at the manual, but was not able to find something useful for this problem. Any ideas?

Hi,

Current and valid TCAs for Functional Safety are readily available at the FuSa "one-stop shop".

But I have not been able to find any archive repository for access to the obsoleted versions.

I would need to have also v1.4 of Xcelum TCA to investigate exact changes wrt previous projects.

Anyone knows how to find it?

Best regards,  Lars

I've heard lots of people asking for a way to generate Makefiles for Specman code, and it seems there are some who don't use "irun" which takes care of this automatically. So I wrote this little utility to build a basic Makefile based on the compiled and loaded e code.

It's really easy to use: at any time load the snmakedeps.e into Specman, and use "write makefile <name> [-ignore_test]".
This will dump a Makefile with a set of variables corresponding to the loaded packages, and targets to build any compiled modules.
Using -ignore_test will avoid having the test file in the Makefile, in case you switch tests often (who doesn't?).

It also writes a stub target so you can do "make stub_ncvlog" or "make stub vhdl" etc.

The targets are pretty basic, I thought it was more useful to #include this into the main Makefile and define your own more complex targets / dependencies as required.

The package uses the "reflection" facility of the e language, which is now documented since Specman 8.1, so you can extend this utility if you want (please share any enhancements you make).

 Enjoy! :-)

Steve.

As noted in white papers, posts on the Team Specman Blog, and the Specman documentation, IntelliGen is a totally new stimulus generator than the original "Pgen" and, as a result, there is some amount of effort needed to migrate an existing verification environment to fully leverage the power of IntelliGen.  One of the main steps in migrating code is running the linters on your code and adressing the issues highlighted. 

Included below is a simple utility you can include in your environment that allows you to collect some valuable statistics about your code base to allow you to better gauge the amount of work that might be required to migrate from Pgen to IntelliGen.  The ICFS statistics reported are of particular benefit as the utility not only identifies the approximate number of ICFSs in the environment, it also breaks the total number down according to generation contexts (structs/units and gen-on-the-fly statements) allowing you to better focus your migration efforts. 

IMPORTANT: Sometimes a given environment can trigger a large number of IntelliGen linting messages right off the bat.  Don't let this freak you out!  This does not mean that migration will be a long effort as quite often some slight changes to an environment remove a large number of identified issues.  I recently encountered a situation where a simple change to three locations in the environment, removed 500+ ICFSs!

The methods included in the utility can be used to report information on the following:
- Number of e modules
- Number of lines in the environment (including blanks and comments)
- Number and type of IntelliGen Guidelines linting messages
- Number of Inconsistently Connected Field Sets (ICFSs)
- Number of ICFS contexts and how many ICFSs per context
- Number of soft..select overlays found in the envioronment
- Number of Laces identified in the environment

To use the code below, simply load it before/after loading e-code and then
you can execute any of the following methods:

- sys.print_file_stats()             : prints # of lines and files
- sys.print_constraint_stats()   : prints # of constraints in the environment
- sys.print_guideline_stats()    : prints # of each type of linting message
- sys.print_icfs_stats()            : prints # of ICFSs, contexts and #ICFS/context
- sys.print_soft_select_stats() : prints # of soft select overlay issues
- sys.print_lace_stats()           : *Only works for SPMNv6.2s4 and later* prints # of laces identified in the environment

Each of the above calls to methods produces it's own log files (stored in the current working directory) containing relevant information for more detailed analysis.
- file_stats_log.elog : Output of "show modules" command
- constraint_log.elog : Output of the "show constraint" command
- guidelines_log.elog : Output of "gen lint -g" (with notification set to MAX_INT in order to get all warnings)
- icfs_log.elog       : Output of "gen lint -i" command
- soft_select_log.elog: Output of the "gen lint -s" command
- lace_log.elog       : Output of the "show lace" command

Happy generating!

Corey Goss

In a nutshell, tags allows you to navigate through program code distributed over multiple files effectively. e.g if you see a function call or a struct in e-code and want to "jump" to the definition (which may be in a different file) then you just hit CTRL+] in Vim! Pressing CTRL+t will take you back where you came from. Check out http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Browsing_programs_with_tags#Using_tags if you want to learn more about how to use tags with Vim.

This utility can generate tags file for your e files. It can either walk through e import order, a directory recursively or all directories on SPECMAN_PATH recursively! The tags file will have tags for struct, unit, types, events, defines, fields, variables, etc.

For help and some examples, just run ctags4e -help.

Attached is the latest revision of the venerable Specman-Matlab package (Lead Application Engineer Jangook Lee is the latest to have refreshed it for a customer in Asia to support 64 bit mode.  Look for a guest blog post from him on this package shortly.)

There is a README file inside the package that gives a detailed overview, shows how to run a demo and/or validate it’s installed correctly, and explains the general test flow.  The test file included in the package called "test_get_cmp_mdim.e" shows all the capabilities of the package, including:

* Using Specman to initialize and tear down the Matlab engine in batch mode

* Issuing Matlab commands from e-code, using the Specman command prompt to load .m files, initializing variables, and other operational tasks.

* Transfering data to and from the Matlab engine to Specman / an e language test bench

* Comparing data of previously retrieved Matlab arrays

* Accessing Matlab arrays from e-code without converting them to e list data structure

* Convert Matlab arrays into e-lists

Happy coding!

Team Specman

Hello,

 I am working in a digital design. The functional, post synthesis and post P&R without IO pads are all working fine, i.e., functionally and with clean timing reports "no setup/hold violations". I just added the IO pads to the same design, I had to change the timing constraints a bit for the synthesis but I have a clean design at SOC Encounter, i.e., clean DRC and clean timing reports "no setup/hold violations". However, when I perform simulation using the exported net-list from SOC Encounter together with SDF exported from the same tool, I got a lot of hold violations. Consequently, the design is not funcitioning.

Why and how I can overcome or trobleshoot this issue?

In waiting for your feedback and comments.

Regards.

Hello,

I have a question I want to create a cover that consists a sparse values, pre-computed (a list or define) for example l = {1; 4; 7; 9; 2048; 700} I'd like to cover that data a (uint(bits:16)) had those values, Any suggestion on how to achieve this, I'd prefer to stay away from macros, and avoid to write a lot of code

struct inst {

  data :uint(bits:16);
  opcode :uint(bits:16);
  !valid_data : list of uint(bits:16) = {0; 12; 10; 700; 890; 293;};
  event data_e;
  event opcode_e;

  cover data_e is {
     item data using radix = HEX, ranges = {
     //I dont want to write all of this
     range([0], "My range1");
     range([10], "My range2");
     //... many values in between
    range([700], "My rangen");
    };

    item opcode;

   cross data, opcode;
};

post_generate() is also {
    emit data_e;
};
};

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