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Quantus Error – Sky130 qrcTechFile not recognized as valid technology file

RK202509013321

Hi all,

I’m setting up Quantus RC Extraction for the Sky130 (sky130_release_0.1.0) PDK, and I’m running into an issue with the provided qrcTechFile.

My environment:

  • PDK: /class/ece482/sky130_release_0.1.0

  • Quantus path: /class/ece482/sky130_release_0.1.0/quantus/extraction/typical/

  • Cadence IC version: (please insert, e.g., ICADVM 23.1)

When I run Pegasus Quantus from Virtuoso and select:

/class/ece482/sky130_release_0.1.0/quantus/extraction/typical/qrcTechFile

I immediately get the following error:

Error: qrcTechFile is not a valid Quantus technology file

When I inspect the file using head, it’s clearly binary (starts with unreadable characters and the line:
CADENCE TECHFILE FORMAT openprocess (RC) (BASE) 21.2.2-p045 2024/2/26,...).

Can someone from Cadence please confirm:

  1. Whether the qrcTechFile in this PDK is meant to be used as a Technology Library (compiled form) rather than a text tech file?

    If not, is there a plain-text version of this QRC tech file available for Sky130 academic installations?

  2. Any clarification or working example would be greatly appreciated — especially since DRC and LVS (Pegasus) work fine in this setup, but Quantus extraction cannot proceed without a valid QRC tech definition.

    Thanks in advance!

Parents
  • Andrew Beckett

    I suspect you've pointed to the wrong kind of file (It wasn't clear from your description precisely what you set and where you set it). What I did was create a pvtech.lib file in my working directory (there's not one in the PDK - it is an early version - lower than 1.0), with this content:

    DEFINE sky130_pv $KITHOME/pv

    where $KITHOME is the location of the PDK - /class/ece482/sky130_release_0.1.0 in your case (I actually set the UNIX env variable KITHOME to this directory, but you could just replace with the full path).

    Secondly, in the $KITHOME/Sky130_LVS/ directory I created a symbolic link to the LVS rule file:

    ln -s sky130.lvs.v0.0_1.1.pvl sky130.lvs.pvl

    I did this because in $KITHOME/pv/techRuleSets it is looking for that file name (this is a mistake, I think, that should be corrected).

    Then when I ran Pegasus LVS, you can easily set up the technology and rule set as follows (the lvs_qrc setting will turn on saving of SVDB):

     

    Having run Pegasus LVS, when you run Quantus->Run Pegasus - Quantus, the form will be populated:

    As you can see, it's then pointing at the pvtech.lib and the technology - all of this is enough to find the qrcTechFile.

    Once this is OK'd you need to ensure you choose the Ruleset:

    Having done all this, it run OK - no errors.

    I was using Pegasus 23.14-s006 (I had some problems with the 24.1 version), and Quantus 24.1.0-p089

    For future reference - Pegasus 24.13-s018 failed with:

    ERROR: Layer 'diff' in LVS_BLACK_BOX_PORT command needs to be a connect or sconnect layer.

    which is a bit strange because there's no LVS_BLACK_BOX_PORT rule with the layer diff involved. I'll raise this with R&D.

    Andrew

Reply
  • Andrew Beckett

    I suspect you've pointed to the wrong kind of file (It wasn't clear from your description precisely what you set and where you set it). What I did was create a pvtech.lib file in my working directory (there's not one in the PDK - it is an early version - lower than 1.0), with this content:

    DEFINE sky130_pv $KITHOME/pv

    where $KITHOME is the location of the PDK - /class/ece482/sky130_release_0.1.0 in your case (I actually set the UNIX env variable KITHOME to this directory, but you could just replace with the full path).

    Secondly, in the $KITHOME/Sky130_LVS/ directory I created a symbolic link to the LVS rule file:

    ln -s sky130.lvs.v0.0_1.1.pvl sky130.lvs.pvl

    I did this because in $KITHOME/pv/techRuleSets it is looking for that file name (this is a mistake, I think, that should be corrected).

    Then when I ran Pegasus LVS, you can easily set up the technology and rule set as follows (the lvs_qrc setting will turn on saving of SVDB):

     

    Having run Pegasus LVS, when you run Quantus->Run Pegasus - Quantus, the form will be populated:

    As you can see, it's then pointing at the pvtech.lib and the technology - all of this is enough to find the qrcTechFile.

    Once this is OK'd you need to ensure you choose the Ruleset:

    Having done all this, it run OK - no errors.

    I was using Pegasus 23.14-s006 (I had some problems with the 24.1 version), and Quantus 24.1.0-p089

    For future reference - Pegasus 24.13-s018 failed with:

    ERROR: Layer 'diff' in LVS_BLACK_BOX_PORT command needs to be a connect or sconnect layer.

    which is a bit strange because there's no LVS_BLACK_BOX_PORT rule with the layer diff involved. I'll raise this with R&D.

    Andrew

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