Design Article
Product How-To: Interoperability comes to EDA
Paul Double, founder and CEO of EDA Solutions
10/3/2010 11:27 PM EDT
Designed for users of Calibre
Calibre users can now view DRC, LVS and parasitic extraction results, including highlighted nets and/or devices, in L-Edit and S-Edit through Calibre RVE and the EVI plug-in. For more efficient LVS, EVI also takes advantage of Calibre RVE’s ability to display hierarchical SPICE netlists and to inspect parasitic capacitances, sorted by node or layer. Designers who have invested in Calibre RVE and Calibre Interactive can now pair that investment to many more layout and schematic capture seats with Tanner’s affordable, easy-to-use tools. Viewing Calibre results and modifying designs directly in L-Edit and S-Edit is a powerful productivity boost.
EVI runs on the PC client, alongside the Tanner Tools, and connects to a running Calibre RVE license on a Unix/Linux server. This allows engineers the flexibility to design and verify wherever and whenever they want.
Simple installation and configuration
Tanner EVI is automatically installed on the PC along with L-Edit or S-Edit. A single page configuration dialog, shown in figure 2, makes setup easy. It allows designers to set the port number for communication with Calibre RVE and Calibre Interactive, the intermediate file locations for storing the results when passing them from the PC to the server running Calibre, and the location of the L-Edit/S-Edit design database. EVI resides entirely on the client machine running Tanner Tools.
The designer can run DRC or LVS directly on a cell in L-Edit/S-Edit by specifying the design database and the primary cell in Calibre Interactive. Communicating through the EVI plug-in, Calibre Interactive then exports the files needed from L-Edit/S-Edit and runs Calibre on those files.
• For DRC, EVI makes a call to L-Edit to export the layout in GDSII format, then sends it to Calibre nmDRC.
• For LVS, EVI makes a call to L-Edit for the exported layout and to S-Edit to export the schematic in SPICE format, then sends them to Calibre LVS.
Calibre runs and then creates the Calibre results file, while the user remains in L-Edit. When the results are ready, they are loaded into Calibre RVE for review.
Next: Viewing errors
Calibre users can now view DRC, LVS and parasitic extraction results, including highlighted nets and/or devices, in L-Edit and S-Edit through Calibre RVE and the EVI plug-in. For more efficient LVS, EVI also takes advantage of Calibre RVE’s ability to display hierarchical SPICE netlists and to inspect parasitic capacitances, sorted by node or layer. Designers who have invested in Calibre RVE and Calibre Interactive can now pair that investment to many more layout and schematic capture seats with Tanner’s affordable, easy-to-use tools. Viewing Calibre results and modifying designs directly in L-Edit and S-Edit is a powerful productivity boost.
EVI runs on the PC client, alongside the Tanner Tools, and connects to a running Calibre RVE license on a Unix/Linux server. This allows engineers the flexibility to design and verify wherever and whenever they want.
Simple installation and configuration
Tanner EVI is automatically installed on the PC along with L-Edit or S-Edit. A single page configuration dialog, shown in figure 2, makes setup easy. It allows designers to set the port number for communication with Calibre RVE and Calibre Interactive, the intermediate file locations for storing the results when passing them from the PC to the server running Calibre, and the location of the L-Edit/S-Edit design database. EVI resides entirely on the client machine running Tanner Tools.
Figure 2: EVI setup dialogue
The designer can run DRC or LVS directly on a cell in L-Edit/S-Edit by specifying the design database and the primary cell in Calibre Interactive. Communicating through the EVI plug-in, Calibre Interactive then exports the files needed from L-Edit/S-Edit and runs Calibre on those files.
• For DRC, EVI makes a call to L-Edit to export the layout in GDSII format, then sends it to Calibre nmDRC.
• For LVS, EVI makes a call to L-Edit for the exported layout and to S-Edit to export the schematic in SPICE format, then sends them to Calibre LVS.
Calibre runs and then creates the Calibre results file, while the user remains in L-Edit. When the results are ready, they are loaded into Calibre RVE for review.
Next: Viewing errors
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John McGehee
10/7/2010 12:07 PM EDT
One of the most pernicious problems with tool interoperability is file skew--a prerequisite file, like a library or a verification result that is out of date. Once it gets into your data, file skew causes subtle errors that necessitate a tremendous amount of rework.
How does your Tanner-Calibre interface address file skew?
I share what I know about IC design flow control at
http://www.voom.net/controlling-your-ic-design-flow
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Joseph C Davis
10/14/2010 12:36 PM EDT
Mentor welcomes interactions between Calibre and third party tools, which is why we have the Mentor OpenDoor partner program to ensure access for other EDA vendors, and quality interfaces for our mutual customers. Quality assurance testing and certification is a big part of that program. Consequently, we feel obliged to inform readers when those expectations are not met.
Tanner EDA is currently not a participant in Mentor’s OpenDoor program, and the External Verification Interface described in this article is not validated or supported by Mentor Graphics. With the growing complexity of advanced verification flows, users should be concerned about errors in the transfer of data between tools, and they should expect that interoperability interfaces are thoroughly tested by all the vendors whose tools are party to the exchange.
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Dr DSP
12/20/2010 8:27 PM EST
Seems like the headline claim " Interoperability comes to EDA" is way too big for the article. How about "EDA Interoperabilty is 1% improved now" instead...
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