High capacity IR analysis problems 

 Hi,

I'm using IC6.15-64b.500.6 on openSUSE 11.4.

I'm trying to carry out a high capacity analogue IR drop analysis but am running into problems. I've successfully done "regular" IR drop analyses in the past using an extracted view and a post layout simulation but haven't used the high capacity version before.

I've been following the flow described in the Virtuoso Power System manual to carry out static rail analysis. I have a layout that has successfully passed LVS and I have run QRC extraction on it to generate a PGDB. As I'm only interested in the VDD net for the moment, I did a Full-chip selected nets extraction and only extracted that net. The PGDB was created successfully as
far as I can tell.

The next step is the CurrentAnalysis. I've chosen Peak, have the top cell name set to the layout cell, net names set to VDD, the spice netlist set to the .spice file in the PGDB directory, the power and ground pins set as VDD and GND respectively, and the voltage set. I've loaded the manufacturer model files and have set the all to typical mean corner only. I've set an output directory that exists. I've left all of the advanced options blank.

When I click run, the log looks like the simulation files are being loaded, but then everything stops very quickly.

The Thunder.log file looks like this:

Including /local_storage/ral/vps_simulation_2/thunder.ckt.
Including /eee/vlsi/DesignKits/AMS/v4.00/spectre/c35/cmos53.scs.
Including /eee/vlsi/DesignKits/AMS/v4.00/spectre/c35/bip.scs.
Including /eee/vlsi/DesignKits/AMS/v4.00/spectre/c35/cap.scs.
Including /eee/vlsi/DesignKits/AMS/v4.00/spectre/c35/ind.scs.
Including /eee/vlsi/DesignKits/AMS/v4.00/spectre/c35/res.scs.
Including /home/ral/vlsi/Cadence/pgdb2/attoX_Core.spice.
Reading /home/ral/vlsi/Cadence/pgdb2/attoX_Core.spice at line 32754.
...
INFO (THUNDER-5361): Found spectre at location:
/eee/vlsi/Cadence/2011/MMSIM/tools/bin/spectre
INFO (THUNDER-5382): Processing device models.


The HCP window log ends with:

Process exited with status 0


Thunder.errors only contains its header, no actual errors.

The only files in the output directory are:

thunder.ckt
thunderCktFile.ckt 
thunderCmdFile.cmd 
Thunder.cmdlog
thunderDevModel0.sp
Thunder.errors
Thunder.log
Thunder.mcap
Thunder.pinfo
vps_probe_file


So it looks like something is happening somewhere to stop the simulation, or I've missed something out. Any hints on what I need to do?

Cheers,

Roger
 

Hi Roger

It might be good to file a service request with a testcase to your local Cadence suppor. More detail investigation is most probably needed.

Best regards
Quek

 Hi Quek,

 Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I don't have that option as we get our licences via Europractice and don't have a support contract. I think we're due an updated version soon so I'll give that a try when it appears.

Cheers,

Roger