How to evaluate expressions in ADE Assembler during a Monte Carlo simulation that require results from a single run at nominal conditions?

I would like to provide some further information.

In an older post, which is almost the same question, is was suggested that

"There is some work to extend the calcVal function to access a named history [...]"

The calcVal function does indeed support named histories, meaning that one could do something like this:

    1. Make a single run at nominal conditions.

    2. Lock the corresponding history and give it a name

    3. Run a Monte Carlo Simulation and fetch nominal results by referring to the name from (2)

Problem: This does not work when sweep variables are involved. The calcVal function then simply returns 0 except for the first run.

There is a workaround where one history for each value is created, i.e. in my case something like:

for each Vref value

    1. Make a single run at nominal conditions.

    2. Lock the corresponding history and give it a proper name.

Then again for each Vref value

    1. Manually change the expressions of the evaluated outputs to fetch the correct result from the nominal run with the right Vref value.

    2. Run the Monte Carlo simulation.

This approach works but is a bit laborious since the evaluated outputs have to be adjusted by hand.

Another approach, also taken from this post, suggest using "Run Plans".

The ADE Assembler user manual states that calcVal can also be used to access result from named runs inside that run plan. Let us assume for simplicity that Vref can only take 3 values; namely Vref=0.2V, Vref=0.7V, Vref=1.2V. The run plan would then look something like this:

    Run1: Single run at nominal conditions with Vref=0.2V
    Run2: Monte Carlo Sampling at Vref=0.2V
    Run3: Single run at nominal conditions with Vref=0.7V
    Run4: Monte Carlo Sampling at Vref=0.7V
    Run5: Single run at nominal conditions with Vref=1.2V
    Run6: Monte Carlo Sampling at Vref=1.2V

The manual suggests that values from another run can be accessed by using calcVal inside the expression for a global variable, for example something like

calcVal("nameOfOutput" "nameOfTest" ?run "Run1")

to access the nominal result inside Run2 from Run1.

Problem: This works fine for variables but not for outputs. If I want to access data from other runs (either by using the VAR("variableName") function or directly via calcVal), then I get an "Cannot simulate run 'Run1' because it depends on the same run." error. If a have more than run in my outputs then I get an "cyclic dependency" error. How can I access data from other runs in my outputs?

Is there really no simple solution for such a trivial problem?

Hi,
disclaimer, I am not from Cadence.
So, please simply ignore it if you have tried and it does not work.

I think the solution using Run Plan would work.
You can use calcVal from the output of Run1 and put it in a global variable.
Then you run Run2, write the output expression by including the global variable from Run1 using Var("variableName").

What I had in the past was Run1 was Monte Carlo and Run2 was Single nominal run.
It worked just fine.