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editing input.scs not working

Rob Gregoire

Hi folks,

I'm running 6.1.5 and I ocasionally need to edit the simulation netlist (for example, to comment out a parasitic capacitance to debug). In the "old days" you would edit the input.scs and then hit simulation ->run and it would run without generating a new netlist. However, with this version it doesn't always use the input.scs - it seems to have one in memory that it uses. That is, if I go to simulation->netlist->display netlist I get the input.scs file that I modified, but the simulation uses the old one. (Editing the file "netlist" doesn't seem to help either.)

Occasionally I can get it to use the modified one, but I'm not sure exacly what I did to get it to do that. It is difficult to debug when you don't know what netlist is being used! So, what netlist is being used? How do I get it to use one that I've modified? 

 

Thanks, this problem is quite frustrating.

Rob

 

 

Parents

  • Rob,

    I thought I'd sent this yesterday, but obviously neglected to hit the Post button...

    Anyway, this is not new - the spectre interface in ADE has always worked this way. The idea is that (by default) spectre is run from ADE in "interactive" mode. What this means is that when ADE launches the simulation, spectre is launched and then reads the netlist. It then goes "interactive" and control is passed to ADE. ADE can then ask it to run analyses or change parameters. The idea is that you can run a simulation, change a parameter in memory, run simulation again, and so on - all the time spectre keeps running, and there's no need for the additional overhead of starting simulation, checking out licenses each time, re-reading the netlist - when most of that work has been done.

    If the change is too significant (i.e. the schematic has been updated), then ADE tells spectre to exit and it is re-started, re-reading the new input.scs. 

    So what this means is that if spectre is already running, spectre will ignore any changes to the input.scs.

    You can solve this two ways:

    • Hit the stop button in ADE. This will force spectre to exit, and so the next run button will definitely re-read the input.scs
    • Set envSetVal("spectre.envOpts" "controlMode" 'string "batch") prior to starting ADE. This will mean that spectre's running in batch rather than "interactive" mode ("interactive" is the other available value). Each time spectre will start, read the netlist and checkout licenses, simulate, and exit. The downside of this is that with parametric analysis or quick design variable changes, you won't get the performance benefit. Note that if using APS, it always is in batch mode anyway.

    Hope that helps!

    Regards,

    Andrew.

Reply

  • Rob,

    I thought I'd sent this yesterday, but obviously neglected to hit the Post button...

    Anyway, this is not new - the spectre interface in ADE has always worked this way. The idea is that (by default) spectre is run from ADE in "interactive" mode. What this means is that when ADE launches the simulation, spectre is launched and then reads the netlist. It then goes "interactive" and control is passed to ADE. ADE can then ask it to run analyses or change parameters. The idea is that you can run a simulation, change a parameter in memory, run simulation again, and so on - all the time spectre keeps running, and there's no need for the additional overhead of starting simulation, checking out licenses each time, re-reading the netlist - when most of that work has been done.

    If the change is too significant (i.e. the schematic has been updated), then ADE tells spectre to exit and it is re-started, re-reading the new input.scs. 

    So what this means is that if spectre is already running, spectre will ignore any changes to the input.scs.

    You can solve this two ways:

    • Hit the stop button in ADE. This will force spectre to exit, and so the next run button will definitely re-read the input.scs
    • Set envSetVal("spectre.envOpts" "controlMode" 'string "batch") prior to starting ADE. This will mean that spectre's running in batch rather than "interactive" mode ("interactive" is the other available value). Each time spectre will start, read the netlist and checkout licenses, simulate, and exit. The downside of this is that with parametric analysis or quick design variable changes, you won't get the performance benefit. Note that if using APS, it always is in batch mode anyway.

    Hope that helps!

    Regards,

    Andrew.

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