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Design Languages >> Verilog-AMS >> Elaborating the design hierarchy
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Message started by mtech84 on Jan 28^th, 2009, 10:51am

Title: Elaborating the design hierarchy
Post by mtech84 on Jan 28^th, 2009, 10:51am

Hi all,

I have some analog design which uses 45nm_bulk.pm , runs perfectly fine when i run with analog environment using simulator = spectre.
now when i run the same design with simulator = ams(spectre) mode: batch. i get the following error 45nm_bulk.pm for model nmos of type nmos the value of level= 54 not supported.

according to the simulator its mixed signal simulator, and everything else remains the same, except ther simulator so why do i get the elaborate error. compiling is fine.

kindly help...

Title: Re: Elaborating the design hierarchy
Post by Andrew Beckett on Jan 28^th, 2009, 11:14am

What version of the AMS Designer simulator are you using? It may be that it's old... (what IUS version is it?).

Also, what does "print_mmsimver" give you (from a UNIX terminal, set up properly to run the tools)?

Regards,

Andrew.

Title: Re: Elaborating the design hierarchy
Post by mtech84 on Jan 28^th, 2009, 7:30pm

i am using IUS54QSR4 and MMSIM62BASE , IC5141USR5. what does level = 54 not supported mean.

Title: Re: Elaborating the design hierarchy
Post by Andrew Beckett on Jan 29^th, 2009, 9:34am

level=54 is the HSPICE level number for bsim4. Most likely your model files are in SPICE syntax.

I can't test, because I no longer have an IUS54 installation. However, IUS55 was using 6.0.1 so was a pretty old version of spectre. I think in IUS54 the new SFE (Simulation Front End) was either not on by default or not on at all.

I did locate an IUS54 installation after all, but see that it was before the print_mmsimver command, so it's clearly pretty old. It was released in 2004, compared with MMSIM62 which was 2007.

Fundamentally you need to use a more recent version of IUS which supports the newer simulator front end. Trying to simulate 45nm models with a 5 year old simulator is asking for trouble, I'm afraid, even if the parser had worked - there are inevitably going to be fixes you should be using, especially in AMS which has evolved. Your IC build is a similar vintage to the MMSIM62, but the IUS is considerably older...

Regards,

Andrew.

Title: Re: Elaborating the design hierarchy
Post by mtech84 on Jan 30^th, 2009, 11:40pm

ok now i have all set to new amskit0611, assura615, ic0611, ius810, mmsim0701 and oa. now when run my design it does not allow me to enable ams plugin. below is the error which flashes. now inviting some more problem. plz help.

ERROR (HED): The AMS Plugin is not available for the Qt based Hierarchy Editor
in this release. The AMS Plugin is available for AMS Designer users by running
the legacy Java based Hierarchy Editor using the amsHED command. To invoke
amsHED from DFII you must set the "AMS_HED" variable in your environment
before running DFII. For example, C shell users may enter the following on the
command line before running DFII: 'setenv AMS_HED'

Title: Re: Elaborating the design hierarchy
Post by wave on Feb 2^nd, 2009, 12:45am

try ignoring the AMS plugin.

Goto your Config view -- open the Config Schematic view
Open ADE normally; change simulator to AMS.

It's a parallel method to the simulator.

:-/

Title: Re: Elaborating the design hierarchy
Post by Andrew Beckett on Feb 3^rd, 2009, 9:10pm

As I said in response to a private post from mtech84, read the error message. It tells you exactly what to do!

In IC610/IC611, the AMS Plugin had not been migrated to work with the new Qt-based Hierarchy Editor, so the workaround was to set this environment variable (explained in the error message) to tell it to use the older Java-based Hierarchy Editor. In IC612 onwards, the AMS Plugin has been migrated, and this is no longer necessary - it works with the new Hierarchy Editor.

Best Regards,

Andrew.

Title: Re: Elaborating the design hierarchy
Post by mtech84 on Mar 12^th, 2009, 9:22am

thnks for the reply... when i switch to ade option and load the saved state it freezes i have tried with all my designs, i donno why it freezes...

Title: Re: Elaborating the design hierarchy
Post by Andrew Beckett on Mar 22^nd, 2009, 11:36pm

I don't know why it freezes either. Best to contact Cadence customer support - that's really the right channel to help debug problems like this.

Thanks,

Andrew.