ADE XL Monte Carlo Simulation: "Error evaluating ocean expression"

Please contact customer support. I recall there being an issue with Monte Carlo in a certain range of spectre versions, so you might want to try running with the latest MMSIM hotfix first (I can't find the details though from a quick search).

I thought initially it might be an issue with plotting waveform expressions with Monte Carlo, but the expression you have their should be producing a scalar result.

As a workaround, you might want to try turning off running the "nominal" run from the Monte Carlo options form in ADE XL.

Regards,

Andrew.

 Hello Andrew,

 disabling the "Run Nominal Simulation" option under the Monte Carlo Simulation Options really did the trick. Now the defined expressions get correctly evaluated and the monte carlo simulation finishes without any errors.

 Thanks a lot Andrew for that useful peace of information.

 Cheers,
      Lukas

Hy Andrew,

i have the same problem (ERROR-8003) but i want to write the code as the following in order to avoid the script from stopping. (the script stops beacuse in the fprintf statement the results don't have the kind (e.g. %f) i specified.

results = .....

it gives me error

if ((result == ??) then

fprintf(file_port "ERROR")

else

fprintf(file_port "%f" results)

) 

I tried to put "nil" NaN" in the ?? field but it doesn't go into the if statement.

Could you tell me what it is written in one expression when it's not evaluated?

Thanks again

Luca 

 hi andrew

 i had the same problem that this guy had but i am using ADE L Monte carlo NOT XL ,and while i looked for montecarlo option there isnt 

any my cadence version is ic5141 ,and i am trying to do a monte carlo simulation ,and here is the spectre output

#########################################################################################

##########################################################################################

Cadence (R) Virtuoso (R) Spectre (R) Circuit Simulator
Version 6.2.1.197 -- 13 Mar 2008
Copyright (C) 1989-2007 Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Cadence, Virtuoso and Spectre are registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All others are the property of their respective holders.

Protected by U.S. Patents: 5,610,847; 5,790,436; 5,812,431; 5,859,785; 5,949,992; 5,987,238; 6,088,523; 6,101,323; 6,151,698; 6,181,754; 6,260,176; 6,278,964; 6,349,272; 6,374,390; 6,493,849; 6,504,885; 6,618,837; 6,636,839; 6,778,025; 6,832,358; 6,851,097; 6,928,626; 7,024,652; 7,035,782; 7,085,700; 7,143,021.

Includes RSA BSAFE(R) Cryptographic or Security Protocol Software from RSA Security, Inc.

Simulating `input.scs' on faith at 3:51:07 PM, Thur Sep 8, 2011.
Command line:
    /usr/local/cadence/mmsim/tools.sun4v/spectre/bin/32bit/spectre -env  \
        artist5.1.0 +escchars +log ../psf/spectre.out -format sst2 -raw  \
        ../psf  \
        -I/usr/local/ibm-13/IBM_PDK/cmrf8sf/V1.3.0.1DM/Spectre/models  \
        +lqtimeout 900 -maxw 5 -maxn 5 input.scs

Loading /usr/local/cadence/mmsim/tools.sun4v/cmi/lib/5.0/libinfineon_sh.so ...
Loading /usr/local/cadence/mmsim/tools.sun4v/cmi/lib/5.0/libnortel_sh.so ...
Loading /usr/local/cadence/mmsim/tools.sun4v/cmi/lib/5.0/libphilips_sh.so ...
Loading /usr/local/cadence/mmsim/tools.sun4v/cmi/lib/5.0/libsparam_sh.so ...
Loading /usr/local/cadence/mmsim/tools.sun4v/cmi/lib/5.0/libstmodels_sh.so ...
Using new Spectre Parser.
Auto-loading AHDL component.
Finished loading AHDL component in 0 s (elapsed).
Installed AHDL simulation interface.

Notice from spectre during topology check.
    No connections to node `0'.
    No DC path from node `clk' to ground, Gmin installed to provide path.
    No DC path from node `a0bar' to ground, Gmin installed to provide path.
    No DC path from node `a0' to ground, Gmin installed to provide path.
    No DC path from node `I0.T9:int_s' to ground, Gmin installed to provide path.
    No DC path from node `b0bar' to ground, Gmin installed to provide path.
        Further occurrences of this notice will be suppressed.


Circuit inventory:
              nodes 165
          equations 799
              bsim4 317   


Notice from spectre.
    4 notices suppressed.


**************************************************
Monte Carlo Analysis `mc1': iteration = (1 -> 100)
**************************************************
awaiting artil process initialization ....

**** Performing nominal run for `mc1'
modelParameter: writing model parameter values to rawfile.
element: writing instance parameter values to rawfile.
outputParameter: writing output parameter values to rawfile.
designParamVals: writing netlist parameters to rawfile.
primitives: writing primitives to rawfile.
subckts: writing subcircuits to rawfile.

Error found by spectre during Monte Carlo analysis `mc1'.
    ERROR (SPECTRE-8003): subckts: Error evaluating ocean expression `path_1_delay_r=delay(VT("/clk") 0.6 5 "rising"
            VT("/c5") 0.6 4 "falling" 0 0 nil nil)'.

Unsuccessfully evaluated export statements (based on return code).
Analysis `mc1' was terminated prematurely due to an error.

Aggregate audit (3:51:13 PM, Thur Sep 8, 2011):
Time used: CPU = 2.27 s, elapsed = 6 s, util. = 37.8%.
Time spent in licensing: elapsed = 40 ms.
Virtual memory used = 23.1 Mbytes.
spectre completes with 1 error, 0 warnings, and 11 notices.

 ############################################################

#############################################################

please let me know if you can help me for that or if you need more info

you can email me on ramadan.buzakuk@yahoo.com

thanks 

Hard to tell without seeing it, but I would suggest running with a current version of spectre (e.g. MMSIM10.1) to see if that fixes it. Otherwise there may be an error in your calculation. If that doesn't help, please log a service request so that we can take a look at the data.

Regards,

Andrew.

 Hi,

 I am facing a similar (but stranger) problem.

I am creating a Spectre input file (with monte carlo simulation) on the fly, and then simulating it. To do this, I am copying the "amap" directory from the ADEXL simulation directory to the current directory.

So, here are the steps:

rsync -az /adex/directory/amap /current/directory

spectre <options> <input_file>

This works perfectly fine when I invoke the above two commands from either a command line, or a shell script.

Problem is: when this is invoked from inside another C program, it throws up this error:

    ERROR (SPECTRE-8003): subckts: Error evaluating ocean expression `idc=(IDC("/V_IMON1/PLUS") + IDC("/V_IMON2/PLUS"))'.
... and similar such errors, right after the nominal simulation

 I have tried disabling the nominal, and the problem just gets pushed to the MC iterations, where it again fails to compute these quantities.

Completely baffled by this strange behavior. Here are the troubleshooting that I have done:

- Make sure that the amap directory gets copied properly - touch every file in there

- Sleep after copying the directory

Nothing works. At the same time, these commands run fine from the command line.

 Please help.

 By the way, I am using MMSIM101

 Some more bits of info, if this helps:

- The nominal simulation goes fine (runs both DC and tran).

- Problem occurs only when evaluating the expressions.

- The dcOp.dc and dcOpInfo.info etc files are created properly in the psf directory.

Well, that's a bit of a "hacked together" flow and a different problem from the one in the main thread - so would probably have been better as a separate topic (could always do a link to the other).

There are some assumptions in the name mapping which expect the directory structure to be netlist (containing the netlist and amap dir) and psf alongside that where the simulation results go.

So you might want to try that. Otherwise I'd suggest logging a service request (I don't have time to try this myself right now).

Andrew