Commercial Software - Cadence Design Framework II

Commercial Software

Cadence Design Framework II
Cadence Design Framework II (dfII) consists of Cadence tools for design management (Library Manager), schematic entry (Virtuoso Schematics), physical layout (Virtuoso Layout), verification(Assura), and simulation (Spectre).

Platform Requirements

Cadence Design Framework II is only installed on the SPARC Solaris ≥7 platform and it requires a paletted 8-bit (256-colour) display. Since most modern displays run in 16-bit (High Colour, 64K colours) mode or 24-/32-bit (True Colour, >16M colours) mode, dfII cannot display directly on most Linux desktop displays. It is possible to use run8icfb, a utility based on VNC to emulate an 8-bit desktop inside a window on a modern display and run applications requiring 8-bit displays such as Cadence dfII inside that window.

To test the platform and OS revision on the Solaris server, log in to that server and type:
% uname -srm
The output from a compatible server would be something like "SunOS 5.9 sun4u"

More recent versions of dfII do feature a Linux port. However, it still works only on an 8-bit or a 24-bit display. Most of our Linux desktops run at 16-bit colour depth which makes them incompatible,

Running Cadence dfII applications

To open the dfII Command Interpreter Window (CIW), please use one of the commands icde or icds or icfb or icms. Please create a project working directory and change to that directory first:
% mkdir ~/projdir; cd ~/projdir
You must open a terminal window on a Linux workstation, choose a Solaris server on which to run Cadence dfII (such as butters) and run icfb remotely using the following command:
% /vol/ee/teach/cadence/scripts/run8icfb -s butters -d $HOME/projdir
It is possible to start Cadence dfII in your home directory, but this is not advisable, because it creates a number of files and directories wherever it is run.

Links:

Cadence Home Page

Installation:

Cadence dfII 2002 for Solaris installed by John Morris, including:

AMS version 2.0ISR

DSMDP version 3.4D

DSMSE version 5.3QSR3

FE version 2.1

IC version 4.46MSR6

ICC version 11.0

LDV version 3.4QSR1

SPR version 4.0QSR2

SPW version 4.8ISR

Support:

Submit a wreq

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G.Kuzmanov@surrey.ac.uk

July 2005