Stats

  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 4
  • Subscribers 125
  • Views 3240
  • Members are here 0
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

"Assertion Failed" in Noise-Aware PLL Simulation

Cod Liang

Dear all,

I’ve followed the tutorial of Noise-Aware PLL Design Flow released by Cadence and try to get the phase noise of my PLL.

The VCO+DIVIDER macro model extraction went well with no error. (please see http://imgur.com/WabXwrT)

However, when I moved to PFD+CP extraction, “assertion failed” popped out and the simulation was ceased. (please see http://imgur.com/6DjFyLS, http://imgur.com/Hr9TP7N, http://imgur.com/uRqrS50)

I was almost sure that the instance name and cell name of the port in these testbenches were correct, and PSS/Pnoise setup seemed to be nothing different from that shown in the tutorial.

Could anyone please help me figure out the problem?

 

Simulation environment:

Virtuoso version IC6.1.5-64b.500.15

Spectre version 10.1.1 32bit

MMSIM version 10.11.412

 

If the information I provided is not sufficient enough to clarify the problem, please tell me.

Thanks a lot. :)

 

Liang

  • Andrew Beckett

    Liang,

    This was end-of-lifed many years ago and no longer is available (the documentation was finally removed in MMSIM12.1, and the menus were removed in ADE in IC616 ISR2, so shortly after the version you're using).

    An assertion failure is an internal error in the simulator. Without seeing the netlist and models (it is suggesting you send this to customer support; this site isn't customer support...), your only real option is to try a later version, but your options are going to be limited given the fact that the flow is end-of-lifed... plus the fact that since these are old versions, there's not much choice available on

    I see that there is still MMSIM10.1 available (for some strange reason which might change soon), but after that there's only MMSIM14.1 and MMSIM15.1 which don't have the noise aware flow. The MMSIM10.1 on downloads has a later hotfix available than the one you're using, but you might get lucky...

    So to summarise, the flow you're trying to use is unsupported now. The problem you have might be nothing to do with the noise aware flow, but the issue is that finding a fixed version of the simulator (rather than a 5-6 year old version that you're using) which also provides the noise aware flow might be tricky.

    Regards,

    Andrew.

  • Cod Liang
    Hi Andrew, thanks for your reply. Actually I had tried to send this error message to Cadence customer support before posting on this community. However I've found it difficult to do this because I didn't have the account to get in. (It requires a Host ID in License Server but I have no permission to get into our License Server.) As a result I could do nothing but post it on this forum to seek for some luck. Anyway I'll try to update simulators and run it again. Is there any updated flow like Noise-Aware PLL which could assist me on estimating PLL phase noise? Really appreciate your answers. :) Liang
  • Andrew Beckett
    On the support site, there's Resources->Rapid Adoption Kits, and then Custom IC and Signoff. Under that, there's a PLL Verification Workshop which covers using a phase--domain modelling approach. However, to get to this, you'll need to sort out the account. Presumably can ask whoever runs the license server in your company, or if you're a University you can look at Support and Training->Cadence University Program at the top of this page to find out how to access support.
  • Cod Liang
    Got it!! Your information indeed helped me a lot. Thanks.

Community Guidelines

The Cadence Design Communities support Cadence users and technologists interacting to exchange ideas, news, technical information, and best practices to solve problems and get the most from Cadence technology. The community is open to everyone, and to provide the most value, we require participants to follow our Community Guidelines that facilitate a quality exchange of ideas and information. By accessing, contributing, using or downloading any materials from the site, you agree to be bound by the full Community Guidelines.