Multiple plots in one ADE-XL output

I'm struggling to think of why this would be useful to combine in a single output and then to want to split them up afterwards? I can imagine for buses, maybe, but this can be done already in ADE Assembler by bundling a whole bus together and you can then expand it into the individual bits if you want).

Andrew

The way I think of it is that a group of plots better explains a certain feature of the design and I want to be able to track it easily and in one window. I could put all those waveforms in ADE-XL and then plot them individually by appending them to the same window, but this seems cumbersome. One example could be magnitude and phase of the loop-gain for stability. Maybe there is already a way to do this without grouping them as one output.

There is an enhancement request (filed by me, in fact, with a number of duplicates), CCR 833141, which is asking for the ability to group/add categories for outputs. This is likely to be implemented using a similar mechanism which we've gradually been adding in Explorer/Assembler (we have tags for variables and corners now, with the idea to add them for outputs too; this would allow filtering and organisation of outputs by given tag names). Maybe that will do what you want (at the moment there's no date for when this would be added, but it's on the list of things to add). It will of course be for Explorer/Assembler and not for ADE XL (since that is end-of-sale).

Andrew

There is an enhancement request (filed by me, in fact, with a number of duplicates), CCR 833141, which is asking for the ability to group/add categories for outputs. This is likely to be implemented using a similar mechanism which we've gradually been adding in Explorer/Assembler (we have tags for variables and corners now, with the idea to add them for outputs too; this would allow filtering and organisation of outputs by given tag names). Maybe that will do what you want (at the moment there's no date for when this would be added, but it's on the list of things to add). It will of course be for Explorer/Assembler and not for ADE XL (since that is end-of-sale).

Andrew

That will be helpful.  I too have resorted to families to return several waveforms from one function.  Generally I do that in cases where there is a somewhat expensive calculation involved that makes it much faster to calculate all the outputs together rather than one at a time.  So it isn't so much that I wanted them grouped on a plot but rather calculating them as a group was much more efficient.

While the tags are being added for variables and outputs, I'd suggest adding to that enhancement request to include the ability to associate comments with variables and outputs.  That would make a big difference in how friendly a simulation setup is when sharing with different designers or even when coming back to a test bench months later.

Dan,

Most things (global variables. tests, parameters and so on) can have "comments" added via Right Mouse->Notes on the data view assistant. I just however realised that this can't be done for Design Variables (probably a hang over from ADE XL days when the storage for tests was limited to what ADE L could store, but could be addressed now). So I filed CCR 2643961 for that.

For outputs, you can add additional columns - just go to the column headings in the output pane and do Right Mouse->Add Column. The default additional column name is Description but it can be whatever you want. Then you can add a description or a comment or note in the output table.

So it's nearly there other than being able to add Notes on Design Variables.

Andrew