Facing issue in seeing the changes made in deployed Pcell.

Hi Everyone,

Whenever I edit any pcell using Pcell designer and deploy it to replace the older version, I am not able to see the changes in the layout in which that pcell is used just by refreshing my workarea. Instead, i have to re-invoke my cadence virtuoso every time I deploy it(edited Pcell). This is very tedious and time consuming.

Is there any command or method by which I can refresh the updated PCell code once it is deployed so that changes can be visible to other people on the server without them having to re-invoke the virtuoso?

Thanks,

Akshay Naik

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0 Goeran 7 months ago

Hi Akshay,

we don't see the deployment problems on our side for layout PCells.

A general recommendation is, however, to separate PCell development environment from your production environment where you use the deployed PCell library.

Kind regards,

Goeran
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0 Andrew Beckett 7 months ago in reply to Goeran

Hi Akshay,

It's possible that the behaviour you're seeing may be version dependent. As far as I know (and from a quick check in current versions) if you're using PCell Designer 2.5.7 or later, then you should just need to do File->Close Data and close the pcell super master in the session which is using the deployed cell, and then when any layouts using these cells are redrawn, it will re-evaluate with the new code.

This is different from conventional SKILL PCells where you'd have to explicitly load the code (which would be a challenge if it's in a context file).

Regards,

Andrew.
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0 AkshayN 7 months ago in reply to Andrew Beckett

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your reply.

Firstly, I am using Pcell designer version 2-5-0. Secondly, I tried with File>Close Data and closing pcell super master but still people who were using the deployed Pcell were unable to get the updated code.

The issue is the user developing the pcell can see the changes in the layouts once he deploys the Pcell, But the other people on the server has to do the tedious task of re-invoking the virtuoso to see the updated version of that Pcell.

Which is the latest version of PCell designer released by Cadence? and is there any method/way to update the code for the version below 2-5-7?

Thanks and regards,

Akshay Naik
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+1 Andrew Beckett 7 months ago in reply to AkshayN

Hi Akshay,

The latest version is 2-5-12 (see the PCD25 release stream on http://downloads.cadence.com). It should just be a matter of deploying the PCells with that version - the chances of any compatibility issues between 2-5-7 and 2-5-12 are very small. Note that that if you're going from a 2-5-0 to a 2-5-12 deployed PCell you probably would still need to close and restart - I think the before and after have to be deployed with the newer version with the refresh support. I just quickly tried 2-5-0 and do see the problem there (not surprising, since it was fixed in 2-5-7).

I must say it's a little odd that it would be commonplace to release an updated version of a PDK and expect users to be able to see the changes live in the same session they are already running. However, we addressed this specifically in 2-5-7 to ensure that refresh behaved as users expect (although as I mentioned, this is not likely to be the case for most non-PCell Designer PDKs). Most companies have a very formal release process which requires the user to do some update to their workarea or flow to pick up a new PDK version.

Regards,

Andrew.
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0 AkshayN 7 months ago in reply to Andrew Beckett

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for your reply and quickly verifying that my issue is version dependent.

I will upgrade to a newer version and develop the Pcells in it.

Thanks & Regards,

Akshay.
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Facing issue in seeing the changes made in deployed Pcell.

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