cell libraries and place and route

[Diva Physical Verificatio]

I cannot speak to the Linux questions you ask, but Solaris is something
I know a few things about. The 64bit Solaris run is using the same size
processor cache as the 32bit run. When an application uses many
pointers, there are fewer pointers stored in the cache in 64bit mode
since the pointers are twice as large. This results in more cache
misses, which cause the processor too have to go to RAM more often,
resulting in more runtime.

One might think the AMD and Intel 64bit processors would have the same
issue, but processor designers do some very odd things at times. Maybe
someone at AMD anticipated this problem and did something ingenious. If
this is so, I hope AMD recognized that genius with a wad of cash.

As for why AMD runs faster in 64bit mode, we can only speculate. It may
be as simple as 32bit needing an extra step to convert addresses to
64bit since the hardware is probably all 64bit pointers internally.
Looking at the machine code might be very illuminating.

On Sun, 07 Nov 2004 18:24:25 GMT, anon_poster <anon_poster@nowhere.net>
wrote:

I got caught up in AMD's "64-bit hype" machine, so I went
out and bought a cheap Athlon64 system, set it up with
a whiteboxlinux.org (Redhat RHEL 3 clone) installation,
then ran some simplistic synthesis tests.

The results really confounded me:

(A) = Athlon64 2800+ (1.8GHz Socket754), 1.0GB PC2700 CL2.5 DDR,
(motherboard is an ECS 755-A2 v1.0)
WhiteboxLinux 3.0 Respin1 x86_64 (similar to RHEL 3.0 update 2)

(B) = dual Pentium3/S 1.26GHz, 4.0GB PC133 CL3 (reg,ECC) SDRAM
(motherboard is a Supermicro P3TDDE)
Redhat 8.0 linux, plus *all* released Redhat RPM updates

(C) = Sun Blade-1000 2750 (dual USparc3 750MHz, 8MB cache), 8.0GB RAM
Solaris 8, base installation (no updates)


Machine Software RAM-usage runtime
------- ----------------- --------- -------
(A) x86 PKS5 32-bit ~300MB 29min
(A) x86 PKS5 64-bit ~400MB 22min
(B) x86 PKS5 32-bit ~300MB 50min
(C) SunOS PKS5 32-bit ~300MB 70min
(C) SunOS PKS5 64-bit ~400MB 80min


Software = Cadence SPR50 (October 2004 update)

"Test-case" is a simple (<80Kgates) Verilog-HDL compile, from RTL all
the way to placed-gates + clock-tree synthesis (no routing, no DFT, no
lower-power stuff.)

Here's the shocker...while the Solaris 64-bit ran *SLOWER* than its
32-bit version -- the x86_64 platform did the exact opposite.
The x86_64 binary ran *FASTER* than the x86 32-bit binary.

...

What I want to know is ...

(a) Did I setup something incorrectly? (Why does 64-bit on the
linux platform run faster? Yet 64-bit on Solaris is slower?)

(b) I didn't have a chance to try Intel's 64-bit IA32e Xeon.
Does IA32e experience the same trend (i.e. 64-bit is faster)?

(c) Why is the netlist-output different among all 4 platforms?!?
I think I used identical setup-scripts for all 4 runs, but
even among the same platform (Sun, x86), the 32-bit vs 64-bit
QoR/area results differ. I guess this goes back to (a)

(d) is my testcase consistant with other peoples' experiences?
For example, does Synopsys's Design_Compiler follow the
same trend?

(e) When will all EDA vendors port *EVERYTHING* to x86_64?

 

[Andrew Beckett]

Really? How?

If this is now possible, it must have passed me by. You could do it in
the old 4.3.4 library browser, but I don't know of a way of doing this
with the library manager. There are a number of enhancement requests
for this, so I'm intrigued to know how you're doing it. Perhaps I
might learn something!

Regards,

Andrew.

On Sun, 7 Nov 2004 13:46:47 -0500, "G Vandevalk" <vdvalk@rogers.com>
wrote:

But it is possible to have your own custom colors for each library type!

-- Gerry



"Andrew Beckett" <andrewb@DcEaLdEeTnEcTe.HcIoSm> wrote in message
news:3oroo057qm0rd8kbe7b0v3uv79pv5ir5ak@4ax.com...
Frederic, Rachel,

The library manager customization you are talking about here can't be
done. There isn't that level of control over the library manager.

Similarly, the library path editor has no customization capability at
all (except a couple of cdsenv vars to control how the locking of
cds.lib files works).

So these would have to be enhancement requests to customer support.

Regards,

Andrew.

On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 18:25:34 +0100, fogh
cad_support@skipthisandunderscores.catena.nl> wrote:

Rachel Smith wrote:
Is there a way to do this? The lib manager lists all the libs in
alphabetical order, so why can't the lib path editor do the same?
Thanks. (using icfb 5.0.32)
Doesn t it makes more sense for the library editor to list definitions
in the
order they are found, rather than alphabetical?

I would myself be very interested in customising the library manager so
that
it puts editable libraries on top, libraries with their own techfile in
bold
font, ...

 

[fogh]

Maybe he is doing it at a low level. With database triggers to determine color
and using X11 protocol to manipulate library manager resources and actually set
the color.

Gerry, please tell us !

Andrew Beckett wrote:

Really? How?

If this is now possible, it must have passed me by. You could do it in
the old 4.3.4 library browser, but I don't know of a way of doing this
with the library manager. There are a number of enhancement requests
for this, so I'm intrigued to know how you're doing it. Perhaps I
might learn something!

Regards,

Andrew.

On Sun, 7 Nov 2004 13:46:47 -0500, "G Vandevalk" <vdvalk@rogers.com
wrote:


But it is possible to have your own custom colors for each library type!

-- Gerry



"Andrew Beckett" <andrewb@DcEaLdEeTnEcTe.HcIoSm> wrote in message
news:3oroo057qm0rd8kbe7b0v3uv79pv5ir5ak@4ax.com...

Frederic, Rachel,

The library manager customization you are talking about here can't be
done. There isn't that level of control over the library manager.

Similarly, the library path editor has no customization capability at
all (except a couple of cdsenv vars to control how the locking of
cds.lib files works).

So these would have to be enhancement requests to customer support.

Regards,

Andrew.

On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 18:25:34 +0100, fogh
cad_support@skipthisandunderscores.catena.nl> wrote:


Rachel Smith wrote:

Is there a way to do this? The lib manager lists all the libs in
alphabetical order, so why can't the lib path editor do the same?
Thanks. (using icfb 5.0.32)

Doesn t it makes more sense for the library editor to list definitions

in the

order they are found, rather than alphabetical?

I would myself be very interested in customising the library manager so

that

it puts editable libraries on top, libraries with their own techfile in

bold

font, ...

 

[Andrew Beckett]

But I don't think you can change the library manager resources for individual widget
instances, dynamically in a running program. At least, not unless it is designed that way.

And how you'd do it from SKILL is anyone's guess.

Andrew.

On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 15:25:19 +0100, fogh <cad_support@skipthisandunderscores.catena.nl> wrote:

Maybe he is doing it at a low level. With database triggers to determine color
and using X11 protocol to manipulate library manager resources and actually set
the color.

Gerry, please tell us !

Andrew Beckett wrote:
Really? How?

If this is now possible, it must have passed me by. You could do it in
the old 4.3.4 library browser, but I don't know of a way of doing this
with the library manager. There are a number of enhancement requests
for this, so I'm intrigued to know how you're doing it. Perhaps I
might learn something!

Regards,

Andrew.

On Sun, 7 Nov 2004 13:46:47 -0500, "G Vandevalk" <vdvalk@rogers.com
wrote:


But it is possible to have your own custom colors for each library type!

-- Gerry



"Andrew Beckett" <andrewb@DcEaLdEeTnEcTe.HcIoSm> wrote in message
news:3oroo057qm0rd8kbe7b0v3uv79pv5ir5ak@4ax.com...

Frederic, Rachel,

The library manager customization you are talking about here can't be
done. There isn't that level of control over the library manager.

Similarly, the library path editor has no customization capability at
all (except a couple of cdsenv vars to control how the locking of
cds.lib files works).

So these would have to be enhancement requests to customer support.

Regards,

Andrew.

On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 18:25:34 +0100, fogh
cad_support@skipthisandunderscores.catena.nl> wrote:


Rachel Smith wrote:

Is there a way to do this? The lib manager lists all the libs in
alphabetical order, so why can't the lib path editor do the same?
Thanks. (using icfb 5.0.32)

Doesn t it makes more sense for the library editor to list definitions

in the

order they are found, rather than alphabetical?

I would myself be very interested in customising the library manager so

that

it puts editable libraries on top, libraries with their own techfile in

bold

font, ...

 

[Andrew Beckett]

On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 12:50:53 -0600, "A. B." <b@f.g> wrote:

So these would have to be enhancement requests to customer support.

while at this, I'd like to see this "sort" function added to
"Design Variables" in the ADE form.

Bear in mind that the library path editor, and ADE are completely different
parts of the code, from different groups within Cadence. The two things need
to be requested separately - you won't get one as a consequence of the other.

Andrew.

 

[SW-Noob]

I feel dumber for reading 1/4 of this article. I did not want to put
myself further into a retarded state by finishing it.

What does this have to do with SolidWorks?

 

On 16 Nov 2004 09:42:45 -0800, jhughes@roofcurb.com (SW-Noob) wrote:

I feel dumber for reading 1/4 of this article. I did not want to put
myself further into a retarded state by finishing it.

What does this have to do with SolidWorks?

Simple maths - more time spent reading and writing here is less time
spent using SW and so less chance of experiancing a crash or catching
a bug - I just like to the light relief

Regards



Jonathan

 

[Zhiheng Cao]

How do I avoid doing this everytime I start schematic? I tried
save & load, but it did not work well. The saved SKILL code was
I still have to manually set "netNameType" to "simulation" each time I open
schematic editor.


LIBRARY = "NCSU_Analog_Parts"
prog( ( libId cdfId )
unless( libId = ddGetObj( LIBRARY )
warn( "Could not find library %s." LIBRARY)
return( nil )
)
cdfId = or(
cdfGetUserLibCDF( libId )
cdfCreateUserLibCDF( libId )
)
cdfId->paramEvaluate = "t nil nil nil nil"
cdfId->paramDisplayMode = "parameter"
cdfId->netNameType = "simulation"
cdfId->termDisplayMode = "netName"
cdfId->termSimType = "DC"
)

LIBRARY = "NCSU_Analog_Parts"
CELL = "nmos"
prog( ( libId cellId cdfId )
unless( libId = ddGetObj( LIBRARY )
warn( "Could not find library %s." LIBRARY)
return( nil )
)
unless( cellId = ddGetObj( LIBRARY CELL )
warn( "Could not find cell %s." CELL )
return( nil )
)
cdfId = or(
cdfGetUserCellCDF( cellId )
cdfCreateUserCellCDF( cellId )
)
cdfId->paramLabelSet = "-none -w -l -m none none none"
)

LIBRARY = "NCSU_Analog_Parts"
CELL = "pmos"
prog( ( libId cellId cdfId )
unless( libId = ddGetObj( LIBRARY )
warn( "Could not find library %s." LIBRARY)
return( nil )
)
unless( cellId = ddGetObj( LIBRARY CELL )
warn( "Could not find cell %s." CELL )
return( nil )
)
cdfId = or(
cdfGetUserCellCDF( cellId )
cdfCreateUserCellCDF( cellId )
)
cdfId->paramLabelSet = "-none -w -l -m none none none"
)


"Manuel Koch" <news@deepwaters.de> wrote in message
news:cmi850$14ea$1@f1node01.rhrz.uni-bonn.de...

goto Edit -> Component Display
then with that dialog open select an instance,
then play with the options to switch of terminal names.

Manuel

 

[Svenn Are Bjerkem]

Zhiheng Cao wrote:

How do I avoid doing this everytime I start schematic? I tried
save & load, but it did not work well. The saved SKILL code was
I still have to manually set "netNameType" to "simulation" each time I open
schematic editor.

cdfId = or(
cdfGetUserLibCDF( libId )
cdfCreateUserLibCDF( libId )

Did you remember to change the "CDF Type" from Effective to Base at the
top of the Edit component CDF dialog? cdfGetUserLibCDF is Effective, I
think, and this is *not* saved with the symbol. If you want to make your
changes permanent, you have to use cdfGetBaseLibCDF or set the combo box
to "Base" instead of "Effective"

Or you have to include the cdf-setting code in your .cdsinit to have it
done every time you start cadence.

)
cdfId->paramEvaluate = "t nil nil nil nil"
cdfId->paramDisplayMode = "parameter"
cdfId->netNameType = "simulation"
cdfId->termDisplayMode = "netName"

I assume that this is the line that cause the net names to be displayed
as default. I assume it should be "not set", but I don't know the skill
value. (maybe notSet or nil?)

cdfId->paramLabelSet = "-none -w -l -m none none none"

Just a question: What is the purpose with the -none and none?


kind regards,
--
Svenn

 

[hikom]

hi keith,

please can you explain what OOS is? Where can I find information about
it? Thanks in advance.

Greetings,
hikom

 

[Svenn Are Bjerkem]

fogh wrote:

Hey Svenn, you did not like it ?

Hi,

I have been busy with internal training and haven't had time to test it
out. Give me a day or two...

--
Svenn

 

[Ken Hagan]

john wrote:

I like tin foil hats but I avoid being programmed by anyone let alone
the US government. Do I still have to move to the next post?

That depends. Have you been beheaded recently?

 

[Svenn Are Bjerkem]

Roger Light wrote:

fogh wrote:

Hey Svenn, you did not like it ?

fogh wrote:

Hi All,

I have started writing a toolbar for placing instances in a
schematic. I am a bit too busy for this now, but please contribute if
you want.
I should rephrase that: contribute any change you make. Consider
this code as GPL licensed : do not distribute it encrypted or in
context-file only format ; and do send back the improvements.


Well I like it even though I only just got it working. There are no
symbol views in the techlibs for AMS processes - they are all stored in
a separate library called PRIMLIB. I just had to specify the techlib
manually to "fix" it.

How did you do this? I get a division by zero error because
CmTechSchItemList is empty. That means that the foreach mapcar ddsym is
failing.

fogh:
I have a hard time understanding your code. The purpose of the program
is to create a schematic toolbar for the current technology, but I don't
quite get what the code will result in.

--
Svenn

 

[john]

As everyone knows by now, the whole Monroe angle blew up in
Hersh's face. When Hersh had to reluctantly admit on ABC that he
had been had, he did it on the same spot where Rivers, Summers,
and Sylvia Chase had played martyrs for the tabloid cause, namely
20/20. On September 25th, Peter Jennings narrated the opening
segment of that program. With what we know in November, Jennings
approach reveals much by what was left out. Hersh appeared only
briefly on the segment. He was on screen less than 10% of the
time. The main focus was on the forensic debunking of the
documents (which we now know was underplayed by ABC.) Jennings
cornered Lex Cusack, the man who "found" the papers in the files
of his late father who was an attorney. From published accounts,
the documents were supposedly signed by five people: JFK, RFK,
Monroe, Janet DesRosiers (Joe Kennedy's assistant) and Aaron
Frosch (Monroe's lawyer). They outline a settlement agreement
between JFK and Monroe signed at the Carlyle Hotel in New York on
March 3, 1960. The documents set up a $600,000 trust to be paid
by contributions from the individual Kennedy family members to
Monroe's mother, Gladys Baker. In return for

 

[m]

On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 16:01:10 -0500, "Jason D. Bakos"
<jbakos@cREMOVEs.pitMEt.edu> wrote:

Hi guys!

Now I'm stuck. What's the best way to get a First Encounter layout
(ideally which includes parasitics from the routing) into Spectre so I
can simulate using my standard cell models? I tried using Verilog, but
Spectre doesn't seem to like to simulate Verilog netlists as
'functional' cell views. Do I need to export the First Encounter layout
using DEF files? I couldn't get this to work either. I must be doing
something wrong.

I am not familiar with spectre but I doubt you can get it to use a DEF
file. It seems to me that the way to go is to export gate level
verilog from FE which has a straigth forward conversion route to a
spice netlist which you should be able to convert to spectre format.
Also export a GDS from FE (which will be metal only with cell
instantiations) and extract it using an RC extractor (starrcxt etc)
which will give you another spice netlist for the parasitic RCs of the
routes. These two files in addition to the spice of the cell files
should enable you to do a spice/spectre simulation.

 

[Israel T]

john <jmuielewicz@yahoo.com> writes:

FBI has been MENTALLY TORTURING me with 24X7 surveillance for the last
three years inside and outside my apartment with video surveillance
devices and motion sensors around my apartment, my phone has been
tapped, my web surfing is being monitored all the time

You must be a fascinating person for the FBI to want to watch you that much.

Have you considered making videos and charging per view ?

 

[Israel T]

maxgeo71@yahoo.com writes:

I hope
hardware suppliers work to the same standard so that I can at least
communicate with other beheaded people in the future.

Beheaded people of the world unite !
You have nothing to lose but your dandruff....

 

[Bernd Fischer]

Sample bind keys come with your Cadence Design Framework installation.

<install_dir>/tools/dfII/samples/local

Bernd

Edward Lawrence wrote:

Hello group.

I'm no newcomer to Cadence layout tools but it seems that every
company has had its own bindkeys until now. Does someone
have a copy handy that they could send to me, or a source where
I could download it?

Ed Lawrence

 

[Bernd Fischer]

This is known at Cadence and they post a Solution for this on
Sourcelink # 11139956.

Here it is it's a kind of wrapper SKILL around the 'schHiObjectProperty'
function.

Bernd


;; Workaround Solution # 11139956 ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

procedure( CCSsopCB2( l_newSize "l" )
let( ((initSize schObjPropForm->initialSize))
hiSetFormSize(schObjPropForm l_newSize)
schObjPropForm->initialSize = initSize
)
)

procedure( CCSsopCB1( )
hiRegTimer(sprintf( nil "CCSsopCB2('%L)" hiiGetFormSize(schObjPropForm) ) 10)
)

procedure( CCSschObjProp( )
hiRegTimer( "CCSsopCB1()" 1 )
schHiObjectProperty()
)

hiSetBindKey( "Schematics" "<Key>q" "CCSschObjProp( )" )

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;



Rajeswaran M wrote:

When particular object is queried the property window is small and we
need to resize every alternative time. Also during that time the icfb
hangs for few seconds. we started facing the problem since our recent
linux migration. The problem exists both in KDE and Gnome environments.
Any help?

 

[Ralf Geiger]

Suresh Jeevanandam schrieb:

Hi,
Check out fvwm95.
http://fvwm95.sourceforge.net/

Or just the plain fvwm ... it works great.
All this fancy overload of kde/gnome is not
needed for EDA work ...

cheers
Ralf