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CAD Tools Setup

Design Flow

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CAD tools demos

HSPICE tutorial

VLSI CAD tools demo list

These demos(shown in class) were based on old CAD tools setups. Here is a list of major differences between the following demos and the CAD tools setups for ECE558/658 FA09 students.

  • We decided to use Xming and Secure Shell Client for ECE558/658 FA09. As a result, there will be no ECS support for Cygwin.
  • Process Design Kit (PDK) was changed from NCSU-CDK(0.25 and 0.18um) to NCSU FreePDK(45nm).
    • The CAD tools setup flow was completely changed. Please look at CAD tools setup page.
    • DRC, PEX, and LVS are completely different. This is due to the utilization of Mentor Calibre for DRC, LVS, and PEX of NCSU FreePDK.
    • Perl script based netlist conversion methodology (schm2spice.pl, lo2spice.pl, etc.) is retired.
  • The Cadence Design Framework is upgraded from IC5.x to IC6.x. So the UI looks different, but the menus are very similar.
    • If you type "icfb&" in the command line, you will see an warning. This is fine. It just ask you to type "virtuoso&" instead of "icfb&".