2019 HF2 Release for Clarity, Celsius, and Sigrity Tools Now Available

The 2019 HF2 production release for Clarity, Celsius, and Sigrity tools is now available for download at Cadence Downloads.

SIGRITY2019 HF2

For information about supported platforms, compatibility with other Cadence tools, and details of key issues resolved in the Sigrity 2019 HF2 production release, see the README.txt file.

At the time of publishing, the link above was functional. If you encounter any links that are now obsolete, visit https://downloads.cadence.com, click the LINUX or WINDOWS tab, and select the SIGRITY2019 release name to access the related files.

Here is a list of some of the key updates in the 2019 HF2 production release for Clarity, Celsius, and Sigrity tools. For more details about these and all the other new and enhanced features introduced in this release, see What's New in Sigrity 2019 HF2.

Clarity 3D Solver 

• Improved Simulation Performance: Several enhancements have been made in Clarity in this release that have improved the simulation performance even further. You can see a marked improvement in the mesh refinement time and frequency sweep time as compared to earlier releases.
• Optimized Disk Usage: Many out-of-core operations are now saved in Clarity, therefore, the disk usage is reduced while solving complex designs.
• New DC Thickness Metal Model: A new option, DC_Thickness, has been added in Clarity 3D Layout and Clarity 3D Workbench. DC_Thickness provides results similar to the Auto_Fitting option; however, it speeds up the simulation time significantly by adjusting the metal skin impedance model to account for the current flow inside the metal before the onset of the skin impedance.
• Coaxial Ports Support in Clarity 3D Workbench: Support for coaxial ports has been added in Clarity 3D Workbench. Coaxial ports are similar to lumped ports. They are applied between two circular metallic surfaces or Perfect Electric Conductors (PECs), or between a metallic surface and a PEC that have more than one sub ports.
• Automatic Net Detection in Clarity 3D Workbench: The automatic calculation of the signal net max edge length is based on signal net assignment. When dealing with external CAD models, the net information is not available. In such cases, the net assignment has to be done manually, which is time consuming. In this release, a new option, Net Auto Detection, has been added in Clarity 3D Workbench that enables you to automatically detect and assign nets to the connected metal parts that do not have any nets assigned.
• Far Field Processing in Clarity 3D Workbench: For antennas, or structures requiring a closer examination of the field radiation properties, a number of new plots have been added. All the calculated properties are assumed to be in the far field (that is, where there is no reactive energy storage/no radial field component).
• Spatial Mode Support in Clarity 3D Workbench: Clarity 3D Workbench now supports 3D Full Wave Spatial Mode simulation. 3D Full Wave Spatial Mode is a workflow inside Clarity 3D Workbench. The main application of Spatial Mode is to be able to view the voltage distribution, far (radiation), and near EM field distribution of a 3D structure (such as RF chip, chip RDL, package, or PCB) excited by one or multiple I-sources directly at the ports.

For detailed information, refer to Clarity 3D Layout User Guide and Clarity 3D Workbench User Guide on the Cadence Support portal.

Celsius Thermal Solver

• Better Convergence Control: The Celsius Fluid Flow Simulation module lets you specify the convergence control criteria so that you can define when the solution is considered converged. In the Convergence Control area of the Options form, you can select only the residual values or a combination of residual and monitor point values as the convergence criteria. You can also monitor the solution convergence and plot the convergence data while the simulation is running.
• Mesh Refinement Control: You can now control the mesh refinement of your design by selecting the desired mesh refinement criteria. The Celsius Fluid Flow Simulation module offers two techniques for mesh refinement that are based on allowing finer meshing on objects or areas of interest and default meshing on other regions. You can also preview the mesh refinement by clicking the Preview Mesh icon in the toolbar.
• Voltus Static Thermal Model Enhancements: Several enhancements have been made to the power dissipation setup using the Voltus Static Thermal model. When you set up dissipation using the Voltus Static Thermal model, you can import the power map file and preview how the power values map to the corresponding data points in the die. You can also add probe nodes to different layers of the die and export these probes to a <package-name>.probe file for it to be reused later.
• Support for Reusing Existing Solution Results in a New Transient Simulation: You can now use the results from a previous simulation run (either static or transient) as an input for the current simulation. The results of a previous simulation run are saved in a result file, saved as <project-name>.results in the workspace folder. This file contains all the necessary information required for the next simulation.
• Clash Detection Checks: Celsius provides clash detection options that help you to identify conflicts between the objects in the design. You can set these up in the Options form and then run clash detection reports to check if objects of a project overlap or touch each other.
• Support for HBM Models: Celsius Solid Objects Simulation for Layered Structures module now supports the High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) model for stacked dies, which allows you to create or import HBM-based designs.

For detailed information, refer to Celsius Thermal Solver User Guide on the Cadence Support portal.

Criteria for Calculating the Sink Voltage Margin in Sigrity PowerDC

Three new options have been added in the Special Handling tab of the Options form to make the sink voltage margin calculation easier:

• Use sink nominal voltage and sink lower tolerance only
• Use sink nominal voltage, sink upper tolerance, and sink lower tolerance only
• Use VRM output tolerance, sink nominal voltage, sink upper tolerance, and sink lower tolerance

You can choose one of these options to specify the criteria to be used for calculating the sink voltage margin, which helps in determining the sink pass or fail status.

For detailed information, refer to PowerDC User Guide on the Cadence Support portal.

Arc Trace Support Available in all SPEED2000 Workflows

New algorithms to process and model arc traces are now supported in all SPEED2000 workflows. Instead of breaking each arc trace into multiple straight line segments, arc traces are now processed as true curved traces. You can enable the new Arc Trace Support option from the Options form before loading the layout file. Furthermore, if Arc Trace Support is enabled, after loading the layout file, you can select the new Coupling Compensation check box in the Options form. This option enables a more accurate algorithm to perform the simulation for coupled arc traces.

For detailed information, refer to SPEED2000 Getting Started Guide on the Cadence Support portal.

Sigrity Release Team

Please send questions and feedback to sigrity_rmt@cadence.com.

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