Virtuosity: What Did I Miss in Virtuoso Visualization and Analysis and ADE during the IC6.1.7/ICADV12.3 ISRs?

I can't detail all of them here, but I'll outline the major enhancements in Virtuoso® ADE Assembler, Virtuoso® ADE Explorer and Virtuoso® Visualization and Analysis, and provide links to where you can find out more.

Migrating to Maestro Views

• You can migrate your ADE XL and ADE L views over to Maestro, then you can import multiple ADE XL or Maestro views and combine them into one view in Assembler.  There are also APIs to convert and combine multiple ADE L states into Assembler. Use the SKILL API Finder or click the links below to read the User Guide.
  • maeMigrateADELStateToMaestro
  • maeConvertAndCombineMultiADELToAssembler
  • maeMigrateADEXLToMaestro
• You can now also set the default application to open an ADE L state or ADE XL view.

ADE Assembler & ADE Explorer

• Run plans in Assembler are now synchronized with any changes made to the test name, variables, parameters or corners in the active setup. Results for all run plan runs can be opened at once, the run plan window now shows the Test setup information making it easy to see what will run and any local overrides will be highlighted. 
• Model libraries can be updated across all tests or all enabled tests in the Data View Assistant.
• The Expression Builder has been added to allow creation of output expressions easily with automatic drop-downs containing relevant options and tooltips to guide you through the arguments. It has the ability to plot or evaluate across all points and/or all corners from a particular test and history. This makes it really easy to see your plots across sweeps and corners from different histories and tests.
• Filters, filters everywhere. The Corners setup form has filters to enable you to easily find a particular corner. Corners found during filtering can be enabled, disabled and so on.  Filters have also been added to the Data View and Setup assistants, making it easy to find variables or values.
• Test Names and Fixed Parameters have been added to the Detail Transpose view, the Detail Transpose view can be sorted by Failure Count or Range and finally the Data View/Setup Assistant Name column can be resized - these are all detailed in this  Handy UI Enhancements blog.
• Parametric sets can now be added to Design Variables.
• Annotation settings that display DC and Transient Operating Points can now be shared between designs and automatically loaded at startup, and even have bindkeys assigned to toggle which saved settings are displayed.
• We now have the ability to detect whether or not a simulation needs to be run or if the previous setup is identical. We check the Assembler setup, Design and Simulation files and run the simulation only if something has changed. This is disabled by default, but can be enabled by a cdsenv.
• Deleting tests or corners can now pop up an 'are you sure you want to delete this?' dialog and you can tailor how you want to transition between Explorer and Assembler.
• UNIX shell environment variables can be used in the ADE Model and Simulation Files paths.
• You can specify the name of your Explorer history prior to simulation and have these history names increment automatically.
• MATLAB has been integrated more tightly with ADE.
• Monte Carlo can be run with sweeps, and all the postprocessing options of Monte Carlo are supported. Statistical corners can be created afterwards that will contain the parameter conditions defined in the sweep. You can now also set the default results view for Monte Carlo simulations.
• The Mismatch Contribution tool has Area Multiplier sliders to increase/decrease instance size, which automatically updates the table making it easy to see the results.
• QQ plots can now be created after completing a Scaled Sigma Sampling analysis.
• Waveform comparison provides the ability to compare waveforms against a reference waveform with the given tolerance settings. The waveform comparison is defined as a specification in the ADE Outputs Setup pane.

ADE Waveform Window

• Quick Plot reduces the plotting time of 'Plot All' for Transient data, providing an instant plot capability for a multi-K corners/sweeps flow. This is pretty handy when you're creating Datasheets.
• The Calculator and Expression Builder now have a user-friendly interface, the GUI builder, that enables custom SKILL functions to be added to the calculator easily. We now also have a Custom SKILL Library on Cadence Online Support where custom SKILL can be uploaded or downloaded.
• Calculator functions, Cross and Delay have been updated to have tolerance values and getAsciiWave has been updated allowing X and Y axes labels and units to be specified.
• We made some major updates to the Eye Diagram measurements and added the ability to apply industry standard or custom Eye Masks.

These are only the highlights, there are many more smaller enhancements that are all detailed in the What's New slides in the Related Resources section below.

Related Resources

• What's New Slides for each ISR for Virtuoso

About Virtuosity

Virtuosity has been our most viewed and admired blog series for a long time that has brought to fore some lesser known, yet very useful software and documentation improvements, and also shed light on some exciting new offerings in Virtuoso. We are now expanding the scope of this series by broadcasting the voice of different bloggers and experts, who would continue to preserve the legacy of Virtuosity, and try to give new dimensions to it by covering topics across the length and breadth of Virtuoso, and a lot more… Click Subscribe to visit the Subscription box at the top of the page in which you can submit your email address to receive notifications about our latest Virtuosity posts. Happy Reading!

Arja Hunkin