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How do I add signal probes to Simvision waveform viewer?

ianmurph

I have some packages that live outside the top level testbench that drive some interfaces. I am trying to figure out how to add these signals into the waveform window. In Simvision, I can see all my packages and the signals from them, but they are in italics and say 'not probed':

How does one make these signals probed? Is there a file somewhere that tells the simulator what signals are probed? The simulation is run through a makefile script, here is a snippet from it. I tried adding the line that starts with 'probe' but I dont really know what I'm doing and this did not work:

if [ ! -d $(SIM_OUTPUT_DIR) ]; then mkdir $(SIM_OUTPUT_DIR); fi; \
cd $(SIM_OUTPUT_DIR); \
find . -type f -maxdepth 1 -delete; \
echo "Curent folder: "; pwd; \
irun -v200x -makelib rcf_lib ../../$(XSC_IP_DIR)/xsc_q7_neptec_ddvs_ntsc_ctrl_axi/src/hdl/constants_pkg.vhd -endlib \
-dumpstack -reflib xil_defaultlib $(IRUN_FILES) $(IRUN_SIM_OPT) $(IRUN_SIM_DEFINE_TC) $(IRUN_SIM_DEFINE_OPT) $(IRUN_CODE_COVERAGE_OPTIONS) -top $(TOP_LEVEL) -top glbl -logfile sim_log.log; \
probe -create -database waves::worklib.cpc_tools_pkg::cpc_tools -all -depth all

I may not have provided enough info to answer the quesiton, if so let me know what info is missing and I will try to answer it. Thanks in advance.

  • in reply to ianmurph

    You need to give the "database -open ..." command above first, so it knows which database to write the data to.

    - Doug

  • in reply to Doug Koslow

    The error I am getting is:

    *E,PRNONE: No new objects to probe in scope cpc_tools_pkg::.

  • in reply to ianmurph

    Is it the same if you do:

    probe cpc_tools_pkg:: -all -depth all

    If so, then let's follow-up in the support ticket. (It seems Xcelium doesn't think there is anything to probe in that package.)

    Thanks.

    - Doug

  • in reply to Doug Koslow

    Yes same error. Okay I will see if I can find all the required info to open a ticket. Thanks for your help.

  • in reply to Doug Koslow

    What was the resolution here? I am facing similar issue. Thanks

  • in reply to Deepak Siddharth

    I never did get this figured out. If you find a solution, please let me know what you did and I will also try it

  • in reply to ianmurph

    Ian, did you ever file a support ticket for this? It should be easy to debug once someone can do a screen share with you. If you're still not sure what your licence server host ID is, ping me a DM and let me know your work email address, I'll try to look up the details in our system (though your CAD team should also be able to tell you host ID).

    Looking back at your very first screenshot, the "signal" you highlighted isn't really a signal at all. Your hierarchy shows a task inside a class inside a package. Waveform probes do not probe into tasks or functions by default, nor do they probe classes by default. This almost certainly explains why you see nothing probed for that package. 

    If you bring up an interactive simulation, navigate to that class / task in the design browser and send it to the waveform window, the simulator should generate the corresponding probe command, which would appear in the xrun.key file after simulation. You could then use that probe command to augment your existing waveform probes for future simulations.

    In my experience though, probing classes and tasks doesn't tend to work well for waveforms, because tasks and functions have a habit of doing lots of operations in zero time, so there's nothing much to show in the waveforms.

  • in reply to StephenH

    Hi Stephen, I never did get a ticket opened. I asked some of my colleagues but could not figure out what our host ID is, so sort of gave up. Some of our simulation models are inside of classes inside packages, so I still would like to be able to probe inside of these if its possible. I tried greping our project folder but I could not find any files called xrun.key or irun.key.

    I can look again to find our host ID if you think this is something that could be resolved with a support ticket?

    Thanks again for all your help.

  • in reply to ianmurph

    Ian, I've sent you a private message so we can try to sort out your login to the support site. Having a login there not only enables you to get 1:1 support from our expert team, but also allows you to search our extensive knowledge base. For example, a search for "Xcelium probe Tcl" came back with this in the top 5 hits: How to probe class objects, dynamic arrays, multi-dimensional arrays, Strings, and UVM objects and I suspect it's exactly the article you needed.
    In short though, you could try to add the following Tcl command to your simulation:
    probe -create -shm cpc_tools_pkg -all -dynamic
    However be aware that changes that happen in zero time, such as class variables being updated inside a loop, will be almost impossible to debug in waveforms. Single-stepping on a breakpoint, or logging to the screen may be a better bet in that sort of case.

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