Cadence Tutorial

Environment Setup

Please note that the steps given in this section are specific to the Cadence installation environment in CVL and IMPACT.

  1. Watch this video to set up X-window and an account with CVL.
  1. Create a directory ECE4220 and change your working directory to ECE4220.

> mkdir ECE4220
> cd ECE4220

  1. Use a text editor of your liking and create a file named cds.lib and copy/paste the following text into the file:

INCLUDE /software/Cadence/IC5141/share/cdssetup/cds.lib
DEFINE tsmc18rf /software/Cadence/TSMC018/tsmc18rf
DEFINE avTech /software/Cadence/ASSURA315/tools/assura/etc/avtech/avTech

  1. Copy /software/Cadence/TSMC018/display.drf file into ECE4220.

 

  1. Then type the following sequence of commands to open a Command Interpreter Window (CIW), shown in figure 1:

> Cadence [It is a script which configures various environment variables required to properly run Cadence]
> icfb& [It stands for Integrated Circuit Front-to-Back and is a Cadence program, which integrates all the design tools required for IC front and back-end design]

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Figure 1. Cadence Command Interpreter Window

  1. Go to Tools->Library Manager to open Library Manager as shown in figure 2:

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Figure 2. Library Manager

  1. In Library Manager, the library column shows a list of libraries available/configured. Cell column shows the cells available in the selected library. Once you select a cell, you will see a list of corresponding cell views available in View column. A cell may have multiple views corresponding to different Cadence tools.

 

  1. In Library Manager, you may enable check “Show Category?checkbox to categorize the available cells in a library into categories according to their type, as shown in figure 3:

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Figure 3. Library Manager with Category View Enable

If you are able to work through till this point without troubles, then your environment setup for working with Cadence is complete.