Power and Net Area Discrepancies in Joules When Analyzing PR Netlists Across Different Tool Versions

Dear Cadence Community,

Recently, our company upgraded Joules from version 22.17 to 23.14. While performing power analysis on the final place-and-route (PR) netlist of a project, I noticed a significant difference in the area and power reports between these two versions.

In Joules 22.17, the area report includes a non-zero Net Area value, and the report clearly states:

Interconnect mode: global.

However, in Joules 23.14, that line no longer appears. Instead, the report shows:

Wireload mode: enclosed,

and—more critically—the Net Area is consistently reported as zero.

This change directly impacts power estimation: the total power reported by Joules 23.14 is noticeably lower than that from 22.17. Based on silicon measurements from the actual chip, the power estimate from Joules 22.17 aligns much more closely with real-world behavior.

Therefore, I would greatly appreciate your guidance:

Are there specific TCL commands or startup options in Joules 23.14 that can restore the net-area calculation behavior (e.g., re-enable global interconnect mode) to match that of version 22.17?

Our goal is to obtain a more accurate power estimate consistent with prior results and silicon validation.

Thank you very much for your time and support!

Best regards