How to do a plot in Cadence?

Hi Alex,

You will need to create either a ~/.cdsplotinit file or ./.cdsplotinit (it could be in other locations too, depending on your search set up). Try running plotconfig from the command line.  The documentation has a section "Plotter Configuration User Guide" and there is a Quick Start section.

Hopefully this helps? Good luck,

Lawrence.

Hi Lawrence,

 Thank you.  I do not have this .cdsplotinit. The only one I have is cdsplotinit(without dot). So I changed it to the .cdsplotinit and provided it at both locations, the ~/.cdsplotinit and under my Cadence running direction. It turned out in vain when I typed the plotconfig in the linux command line. I guess the file cdsplotinit needs to be revied somehow. But I am ignorant about the grammar of used language. Can you kindly provide me a feasible one?

Regards,

Alex 

Alex,

You can't just copy a random cdsplotinit file and hope it will work - you have to set it up to use an appropriate printer to spool to and so on.

If you run <ICHOME>/tools/plot/bin/plotconfig (and you can find out where ICHOME is by doing 'cds_root virtuoso' or 'cds_root icfb' depending on the version) you can create one (it's just not in the UNIX path by default, probably). Or as Lawrence said, look in <ICHOME>/doc/plot/plot.pdf - this will tell you the syntax of the file.

Regards,

Andrew.

Hi Alex,

perhaps your LD_LIBRARY_PATH is not set or it is set incorrectly?   You should have the <install_dir>/tools/lib in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH.  If that all looks correct, check that the OS supports what you are trying to run: checkSysConf from the command line with the argument IC5.1

Best regards,

Lawrence.

Hi Alex,

You would check $LD_LIBRARY_PATH using something like 'echo' typically - 'which' is for things on your executable path.  I would expect to see another entry in addition to the MMSIM entry; i.e. one for your Virtuoso installation.  Typically there are tool wrappers that take care of setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH, but IC5141 is pretty old and I don't recall if it did this or not.  Add the entry for your virtuoso installation and try again.  What is Cadence Camera?

Regards,

Lawrence.

Hi  Lawrence,

Yeah, it was almost the same result once I did a 'echo'.

 echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH

/lib64:/usr/lib64:/lib:/usr/lib::/CMC/tools/cadence/MMSIM_07.20.109_lnx86/tools/lib

There wasn't an extra entry showing. 

Alex,

If using csh, then do:

setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH $CDSHOME/tools/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

if using bash or ksh, use:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$CDSHOME/tools/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

then $CDSHOME/tools/plot/bin/plotconfig

In IC61X (IC616 at least) plotconfig has a wrapper which avoids the need to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH, but in IC5141 that was required.

The Camera menu you mention (which was dropped in IC61) is just doing a simple screen grab and outputing in PostScript. It was dropped because there were better utilities for doing this, plus now there's the ability to export an image directly from the schematic and layout editors. If you want a vector plot though (rathe than raster), then setting up a plotter using plotconfig is still a good solution as this will have better resolution than screen resolution (which is all you'll get from the "Camera" command).

Regards,

Andrew.

Andrew,

I have tried setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH $CDSHOME/tools/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

and  $CDSHOME/tools/plot/bin/plotconfig