EE4340 Cadence 6 Setup

Spring 2020

Contents

1 NoMachine Setup 1

2 One-Time Cadence Setup 6

3 Every Time You Launch Cadence 11

4 Differences from Cadence 5 14

5 Example Project 3: Amplifier 16

1 NoMachine Setup

Note: If you have already set up NoMachine on your computer for a different class, you can skip this section.

1. Download the NoMachine client from https://www.nomachine.com/download and run the installer onyour computer. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. You may have to restart your computerafter the installer finishes.

2. For the following steps, make sure your are connected to either:

• CometNet if you are on campus

• The UTD VPN if you are off campus. See https://www.utdallas.edu/oit/vpn/ for instructionson setting up the UTD VPN.

Note that you will need to be connected to CometNet or the UTD VPN every time you connect to NoMachine,not just for setup.

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3. When you first launch NoMachine, continue past the welcome screen. Then, click on New to create anew connection.

4. Select the protocol NX and click Continue.

5. Type in engnx.utdallas.edu as the host and make sure the port is 4000 , then click Continue.

6. Select Password as your authentication method and click Continue.

7. Select Don’t use a proxy and click Continue.

8. Give your connection a useful name, such as UTD NoMachine and click Done.

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9. You should now see the connection in NoMachine, as shown below. Double click on it to launch theconnection.

10. The first time you launch the connection, you will see a message asking to verify the host authenticity.Click Yes to continue.

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11. Enter your Net ID and password when prompted. If you wish, you can save the password so you don’thave to type it in every time you connect.

12. If you do not already have a virtual desktop open, click on New Desktop, then click on Create anew virtual desktop.

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13. You should now see the NoMachine desktop, which looks like the picture below. Any windows youopen in the virtual desktop will stay open as long as the virtual desktop does, even if you disconnectfrom NoMachine.

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2 One-Time Cadence Setup

Note: This section only needs to be done once, not every time you want to use Cadence.

1. Connect to your NoMachine desktop. In the top left menu, click on Applications, then SystemTools, and then on Konsole to launch the terminal.

2. Type the command cd and hit enter to make sure that you are in your home directory.

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3. Type the command tar zxvf /proj/cad/startup/EE4340.tar.gz and hit enter to untar that file into

your current directory. You can check that the command worked by typing the command ls andhitting enter to see if a directory called EE4340 was created.

Now we will create a library in which you can create all of your files for this class.

1. First, in the terminal, type the command cd ∼/EE4340 and hit enter to change to the Cadence

directory for this class.

2. Due to an error on some accounts with Cadence 5, we need to replace the Cadence profile. To do this,

type rm -f profile.ic-5 and hit enter to remove the old profile. Then, type

cp /proj/cad/startup/profile.ic-6.18 ./profile.ic-6 to copy the Cadence 6 profile to your directory witha new name.

3. Then type the command source profile.ic-6 and hit enter to setup your environment variables.

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4. Type virtuoso& and hit enter to launch the command interpreter window (CIW). If you get a What’snew in IC6 Overview window, you can close it.

5. Now open the Library Manager by clicking on Tools, then Library Manager.

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6. Click on File, then New, then Library.

7. Give your library a useful name like EE4340 and click OK

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8. Select Do not need process information and click OK. Note that the window might open upbehind others.

9. You should now see your library in the Library Manager.

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3 Every Time You Launch Cadence

Note: These steps are to launch Cadence if it is not currently open. If you already have Cadence open andcan see your Library Manager, you do not need to do this.

1. Connect to your NoMachine desktop. In the top left menu, click on Applications, then SystemTools, and then on Konsole to launch the terminal.

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2. Run the following commands to change to the Cadence directory for this class, set up the environment,and launch the command interpreter window (CIW).

cd ∼/EE4340source profile.ic-6virtuoso&

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3. Open the Library Manager by clicking on Tools, then Library Manager.

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4 Differences from Cadence 5

You can find the other two example projects in the previous guide, which was done in Cadence 5. Theinstructions should be basically the same, but some differences to note are:

• A new schematic cell view will be made with Schematic L. This should be the default selection.

• The analog environment is now abbreviated ADE L and is found in the Launch menu under ADE L.

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• The check and save button is the blue floppy disk in the top left with the check mark.

• If you get a pop up asking you if you want to use the next license, click Yes

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5 Example Project 3: Amplifier

In this example project, we will create and simulate the DC transfer function of a common source amplifierwith source degeneration.

1. Launch Cadence as shown in Section 3.

2. In the Library Manager, create a new cell view. Give your cell view a useful name like cs amplifier .

3. You should now see the schematic editor window. Create the following circuit using the Add Instancewindow and by placing wires. Check and save you schematic when you are done. Note that:

• The NMOS has a length of 0.5µm and a width of 10µm. Type these as 0.5u and 10u ,

respectively. Make sure to set the model name to NMOS

• Resistors can be found in the library analogLib as the cell res , where the resistance should be

1k for Rs and 2k for Rd.

• The input source is a vdc source that has a DC voltage of 1.5 and an AC magnitude of 1 .

• VDD = 3V

• If you are unable to place an item, make sure that the library is analogLib and that the view is

symbol in the add instance window.

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4. We will do an DC analysis for this example. Open the analog environment window and click onAnalyses, then Choose. In the window that appears:

• Select dc as the analysis and check Hysteresis Sweep

• Select Component Parameter as the sweep variable

• Type a forward slash and the name of you input source ( /Vin in this example) as the componentname

• Enter dc as the parameter name

• Select Start-Stop as the sweep range, and type 0 for the start and 3 for the stop so that the

range is from 0V to VDD.

• Select Linear as the sweep type and enter a small value, like 0.001 , as the step size.

Then click OK.

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5. In the analog environment window, click on Outputs, then To Be Plotted, then Select on Schematicto select your output. You will then need to click on the wire of output node on the schematic.

6. In the analog environment window, click on Simulation, then Netlist and Run to run your simulation.Click OK on the Welcome to Spectre if it comes up. You can close the log window that appearsonce the simulation is finished.

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7. Your final result graph of the DC voltage transfer function should automatically pop up and shouldlook like the following picture.

Note: If you want to plot the current into the terminal of a device (for e.g., into the drain of an NMOS),you can click on that terminal when selecting the output to plot

Note: If you unintentionally select the wrong output to plot, you can select it in the analog environmentwindow and delete it using the red X symbol on the right

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