Virtuosity: What's New in Run Plan - Part IV

20 Aug 2020 • 4 minute read

This blog is part of the what’s new blog series. Links for the previous blogs in this series are available in the Reference section of this blog. It's our constant endeavor to enhance and improve the usability of the Run Plan assistant to help our users with the latest design verification complexities. Watch this space for our posts for new enhancements related to Run Plan in Virtuoso® ADE Assembler.

Since Virtuoso ADE Assembler IC6.1.8/ICADVM18.1 was released, we have continued our drive to improve the Run Plan assistant in terms of usability and stability by introducing new features. Significant performance improvements have been made to the assistant throughout the IC6.1.8/ICADVM18.1 ISRs.

I'll discuss these enhancements in this blog.

Using the Run Plan for Reliability Analysis

Reliability setups were added in IC6.1.8/ICADVM18.1 ISR6. These setups allow you to create multiple runs with different reliability configurations, such as single age simulation, gradual aging, and statistical aging (Monte-Carlo + Aging), and then run all of them together in one go. All the Run Plan features like conditional run and pre/post-run scripts can be used to create complex run plans for reliability verification.

In this example, I have configured three runs in series. SingleAging (10 years) reliability simulation followed by a GradualAging simulation, and finally, a statistical aging run (MC_Aging), which considers process or device variations in both stress and age simulations

Modifying Corners within Run Plan

Run Plan has always been a subset of active setup created in Data View of the maestro setup. Most users define their corners in the Data View assistant, and a subset of these corners can be dragged over into the Run Plan. The benefit of this is that the corners in the Run Plan are always in sync with any changes to the corner setup in the Data View assistant. But this also means that you can’t make changes to your corner settings in Run Plan if needed. Starting from IC6.1.8 ISR10, you can create two types of corners in Run Plan

Reference Corners – All corners that are marked as Reference Corners come from the Data View or are manually dragged into a run plan. In the Run Plan assistant, these corners can only be enabled, disabled, or removed. No modifications are supported for this corner type.

Local Corners (added in IC618 ISR10)– You can select single or multiple corners and change them to a Local Corner. The benefit of a Local Corner over a Reference Corner is that you can modify definitions of Local Corner such as variables and model files selections

The example below demonstrates this. Local Corners are marked in blue text color in the Run Plan assistant. You can change Local Corners back to Reference Corners and vice-versa.

Importing Run Plan from One Maestro View to Another

Starting IC6.1.8 ISR10, the Run Plan check box has been added to the Import Setup form in Virtuoso ADE Assembler. You can select the library/cell/view and import the Run Plan settings into your maestro view.

Copying Simulation Settings from One Run to Another Run

You can also apply simulation settings from one Run to another Run if the Runs are set to simulate on the same Run Mode. For example, if the MC run is set to run Monte Carlo Sampling, the simulation options from the MC run could be copied to Run.0, Run.1, or both using the Apply Simulation Options in the right-click menu

Tip: Did you know that you can change the mode of multiple runs in one go?

Yes! You can select a unique run mode entry of each run. Use Ctrl + click to select multiple run mode entries and then right-click to change all selected Run Modes using the Change Run Mode option.

Related Resources

Rapid Adoption Kit

Virtuoso ADE Assembler Run Plan Assistant

Blogs

User Guide

Virtuoso ADE Assembler User Guide

For more information on Cadence circuit design products and services, visit www.cadence.com.

Contact Us

For any questions, general feedback, or even if you want to suggest a future blog topic, write to custom_ic_blogs@cadence.com.

Happy Reading!

Yagya Mishra

About Virtuosity

Virtuosity has been our most viewed and admired blog series for a long time. The series has brought to the fore some less well-known yet very useful software and documentation improvements and has also shed light on some exciting new offerings in Virtuoso. This series broadcasts the voices of different bloggers and experts, who 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. To receive notifications about the new blogs in this series, click Subscribe and submit your email ID in the Subscriptions box.