What's Good About RF SiP and Data Management? Look to 16.6 and See!

The 16.6 Allegro RF SiP product has 3 major enhancements to improve your productivity.

Read on for more details …

Data Management of Virtuoso SiP Views

In release 16.6, Virtuoso SiP Architect is enhanced to support data management of SiP views through the Virtuoso Library Manager.

To enable this, files generated in the Virtuoso-SiP Layout flow are now generated in the lib:cell:view format. Starting in the 16.6 release, if you launch SiP Layout from Virtuoso and run the export chips with connectivity command, two views - connectivity and chips - are generated below the cell name. Similarly, while designing a co-design IC, when you export the die data from Virtuoso Layout Editor, the generated die abstract file, <cellName>.dia, is saved in the die_abstract view.

If you have data management enabled for Virtuoso, the following SiP views will also support check-in and check-out of the files:

•    connectivity --This view contains the connectivity.csv file with information about cell connectivity.
•    chips -- Contains package data for the symbol generated after die export.
•    die_abstract -- Contains the die data extracted as .dia file.

These views also support the Auto checkout feature. During an operation, if the view to be updated is check-in and auto checkout is enabled, you are not prompted to check-out the file.

To enable the auto checkout feature in the batch mode, you need to set the rfsip_autocheckout_batchmode environment variable. In this case, all the checkout messages are listed in the Command Interpreter Window (CIW).

Import Die Abstract Enhancements

The import die abstract feature in Virtuoso Layout Editor (VLE) is enhanced to support auto-backup of original IC-layout during die-import. You have an option to enable or disable the backup creation feature. With this option enabled, every time you import the die abstract (.dia) file, a original die layout is saved in the layout_bkup view.

Besides this, the difference viewer has also been enhanced. You can now specify the tolerance values for various properties and if the changes are within the specified tolerance, they will be ignored.

Die Abstract File Enhancements

Starting this release, when you export die data using .dia files, the shapes, such as polygons and circles, defined in the Area Transfer are also transferred. This functionality allows you to use to use die abstract files to transfer shapes -- such as company logos -- from Virtuoso SiP Architect to SiP Layout.

Please share your experience in using these new features.

Jerry “GenPart” Grzenia