Advanced Design System 2014.01 Release Notes

For general information about Advanced Design System (ADS), visit ADS webpage at http://www.keysight.com/find/eesof-products

Key Features

• New Platform Features
• New Layout Features
• New Layout versus Schematic (LVS) Features
• New EM Simulation Features
• New Electrothermal Floorplanner Tool
• Circuit Simulation Enhancements
• High-Speed Digital Design
• New Verification Test Benches (VTB)  for LTE, LTE-Advanced, WLAN 11ac, RADAR, and DigitalMod
• Installation
• Licensing
• New HDF5 File Format Export Support
• Documentation Enhancements

Issues Addressed

Licensing

Platform

• The File > Release Layout License menu has been removed from the Layout window, as the Layout license gets released automatically when all layout windows are closed.
• Switching to the "Library View" tab after opening a schematic from the "Folder View" tab will not result in a crash.
• A cell's itemdef.ael file is no longer overwritten when renaming its library, moving the cell to a different library, or copying the cell to a different library while retaining the same cell name.
• If an open library contains a reference to a separate technology library, it will be updated when the technology library is renamed.
• The "Library View" tab refreshes when changing a library's mode to or from Read-Only.
• Migrating schematic designs with non-90 degree rotated instances will preserve connections between instances, although the original wire stubs will remain and must be fixed manually. Component authors must also update component definitons to support non-90 degree rotation in ADS 2011.01 and later releases.
• Migrating designs with layout look-alike symbols properly displays connected pins.
• Migrating designs with bus syntax retains the ':' characters in net names, preserving the connectivity.
• Performance is greatly improved when creating and opening workspaces containing large libraries located over a network.
• The Edit > Modify > Force To Grid command in Schematic reroutes wires as necessary to maintain connectivity when components are moved.
• Copying and pasting a Global Variable maintains its global scope.
• Shift+Select toggles properly between selecting and deselecting vertices.
• When rectangle vertices are selected in Layout, performing Select > Deselect Area will deselect the vertices instead of selecting the entire rectangle.
• Responsiveness is improved when the Library Browser is open and workspace files are modified.
• The DRC error layer is no longer filled by default.

Artwork Translators

• DXF Export does not crash when exporting two different ADS layers to the same DXF output layer.
• DXF Export retains arc information instead of exporting arcs as polygons or polylines.
• GDSII exports dot-shaped (zero dimension polygon) pins in a way that avoids failures at foundry mask level checks.
• Gerber Import properly handles cut-out islands.
• Gerber Import has improved handling of decimals in Drill files.
• IFF Import uses the correct Library Technology resolution setting.
• IFF Import properly maps illegal characters and keeps legal characters.
• IFF Import results in correct net names involving Grounds in Layout.
• IFF Import now supports layout sub-design instances with non-90 degree rotation angles.
• IGES Import performance is once again comparable to ADS 2009U1.
• Mask Export file size is reduced when the layout contains a large number of rectangles.

Data Display

• List plots now support the ability to automatically resize to the width of the displayed data.

Momentum Simulations

• Layer and Shape specific mesh settings are respected when mesh reduction is enabled. Previously, mesh reduction ignored them. For example, a denser mesh on a specific layer was reduced away to the global mesh density.
• Addressed solver crashes that could be triggered when working with dense meshes.
• Improved modeling when long narrow quads are present in the mesh.
• Improved modeling of the current flow in contact areas between thick strips.
• Improved cluster simulation status and warning message reporting in the EM Job Manager.

FEM Simulations

• Memory usage and performance of designs containing a large number of ports is improved.
• Increased FEM mesh performance and robustness for large designs.
• Improved stability when using waveguide ports in multi-conductor applications such as co-planar waveguide, floating ground, stacked conductors, and multiple coupled lines.
• Improvements in co-simulation flow with EMPro 3D components, advice is to use ADS 2014.01 in combination with EMPro 2013.07 HF1.

Circuit Simulation

• Improved convergence for MOSVAR in ST PDK
• HSPICE compatibility for HiSIM-HVMOS
• Improved convergence for Transient Assisted Harmonic Balance simulation of Oscillator circuits
• Improved ChannelSim accuracy for channels with 10 or more multiple segments
• Allow variable number of pins for VBIC model in Spectre compatibility mode
• Add support for the IBIS 5.1 C-Comp_Corner keyword
• Enhanced default DC solver now uses a new DC convergence algorithm
• Significantly improved performance of Tran solver with PWL sources that have extremely large number of segments

Known Issues

Installation

• While installing a new version of ADS, if you see “Previous version detected” and you've already ran the uninstaller for ADS, you need to manually uninstall ADS before continuing with a new installation of ADS. To manually uninstall ADS, perform the following steps.
  1. Exit the current ADS installation session if it is running.
  2. Remove/rename the file .com.zerog.registry.xml under directory C:\Program Files (x86)\Zero G Registry and manually remove the ADS installation directory through the Windows Explorer. The directory Zero G Registry is a hidden directory and file .com.zerog.registry.xml is hidden. To see the hidden directory, change the settings to view hidden files under Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization\Folder Options.
  3. Re-start the ADS installer after these steps.

• While installing on Linux, if the message “dialog prompts to insert Disk1” is seen, this generally means the download the customer is using has been corrupted. This message can indicate the local hard disk ran out of the space while the untar command was performed.

• Antivirus Usage: Advanced Design System can have issues either booting up properly or running the simulations properly on a system with Antivirus or any other security protections installed.
  Workaround: You should add the following list of executables (for products such as McAfee or Bitdefender) under the ADS installation directory as exceptions to the Antivirus or security protection settings for the given product:
  • bin/hpeesofde.exe
  • bin/MomEngine.exe
  • bin/hpeesofdds.exe
  • bin/agilent-vacomp.exe
  • bin/hpeesofsim.exe
  • bin/win32_64/MomEngine.exe
  • bin/win32_64/hpeesofdds.exe
  • bin/win32_64/agilent-vacomp.exe
  • bin/win32_64/hpeesofsim.exe

• If a user doesn't use the Gnome or KDE Window manager on Linux, then the Gtk warning message appears on the terminal window while installing ADS on 64-bit Linux (RHEL 6) platform.

• Symantec Endpoint Protection Notification appears while installing ADS.

• On some Linux systems, the Advanced Design System installation process will report warnings due to the default settings for the maximum number of files that can be opened.
  • To verify that your system is experiencing issue with a limit on open file descriptors while installing ADS, open the log file under the directory $HOME/Uninstall_ADS2014.01/Logs , where the name of the file is Advanced_Design_System_2014.01_Install…log. 
  •  If you see the phrase “Too many open files” under the log file then, you need to increase the open file descriptors limit on your system.
  • Use the following command to display the maximum number of open file descriptors
    • cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max
  • To see the hard and soft values, issue the command as follows:
    • ulimit -Hn
    • ulimit -Sn
  • Increase Open FD Limit at Linux OS Level*
    • Many application such as Oracle database or Apache web server needs this range quite higher. So you can increase the maximum number of open files by setting a new value in kernel variable /proc/sys/fs/file-maxas follows (login as the root)
      • sysctl -w fs.file-max=100000
    • Above command forces the limit to 100000 files. You need to edit /etc/sysctl.conffile and add the following line so that after reboot the setting will remain as it is
      • vi /etc/sysctl.conf
    • Append a config directive as follows:
      • fs.file-max = 100000
    • Save and close the file /etc/sysctl.conf. You need to log out and login again for the changes to take effect or just type the following command.

• Unable to uninstall ADS on certain Windows 7 64 bit machines.
  Workaround: Rename or remove the jre directory under the installation directory and run the uninstaller.

Spaces and International Characters' Supportability (This is a beta feature in this release.)

• Leading or trailing spaces in workspace name or cell name are not supported. Space should be used only to separate two words.
• Mentor’s DxDesigner does not support international characters. When cells named with international characters are transferred to Mentor, the international characters gets modified.
• In case of Budget Simulation, when user tries to open the results of simulation (.csv file) with international characters, MS Excel gives the incorrect filename error.
  Workaround: Ignore the incorrect filename error; open the file manually to view the results.
• DRC AEL Rule files (like “drc.ael” or “spacing.ael”) cannot contain international characters in the name. It otherwise works well with the international characters.
• LVS AEL Rule files cannot contain international characters in the name. It otherwise works well with the international characters.
• Ptolemy modelbuilder and HDLCosim is not working when space(s) or international characters are part of ADS installation path.
  Workaround: Install ADS in a directory that does not contain spaces in the installation directory path.
• Model Composer and Advanced Model Composer do not support spaces or international characters in the library or cell name.

Licensing

• Unable to invoke ADS 2009 Update 1 with node locked license file on Linux.
  Workaround: Invoke ADS 2009 Update 1 with floating license file on Linux.
• When the same user is running similar simulations from multiple sessions of ADS on the same computer and display---that is, the same User-Display-Host--- and if simulations are rerun an extra license may be pulled.
  Workaround: Select Simulate > Stop and Release Simulator in all the ADS sessions to release all the simulator licenses, then rerun the simulations.

Platform

• Editing a schematic can result in a situation where it looks like a wire has two different node names when, in fact, two different named wires exist. This issue will be addressed in a future release.
  Workaround: Use the View>Navigator Window or Tools>Info... feature to view the nets.
• There is a known problem with Cadence Design System's Virtuoso software when using libraries compatible with the Windows file system and using uppercase letters in the library name.
  Workaround: Use all lowercase names for IC Interoperable libraries and designs.
• After opening a substrate, using Version Control to check-out a different revision of the substrate will not show any changes.
  Workaround: Close the workspace and reopen it.
• Genesys 2012.01 and earlier versions do not support schematic export to ADS in 64-bit mode. This will be addressed in a future version of Genesys.
  Workaround: Launch ADS 32-bit to use the ADS-Genesys Link for Genesys-to-ADS schematic transfer.
• When running ADS on linux and displaying it on a remote system, some graphics drawing such as displaying menus are slower than on previous releases.
  Workaround: Launch ADS with "-graphicssystem" as a command line option to the "ads" startup script.

Layout

• ADS crashes when a Via is selected and its corresponding via definition is deleted.
  Workaround: Before deleting a via definition, delete the corresponding Via instance(s) from the layout.

Electrothermal

• Receiving errors in licensing while running thermal simulator.
  Workaround: Rename the file $HOME/.eesofrc. For example, $HOME/.eesofrc-orig.
• All libraries referenced in a layout should use the same layout resolution (database units per user unit).
• LSF, remote, batch, sequencer simulation does not work with thermal.
• You cannot run both a transient and envelope simulation on the same design from one testbench.
• Thermal simulation only works with the default DC convergence mode. If you change DC_ConvMode (not recommended), thermal simulation may not work.

EM Simulation

• An EM Setup saved in ADS 2014.01 resets the Momentum Global Mesh Options to the factory defaults when opened with ADS 2011.10.
  Workaround: Install the latest ADS 2011.10 hotfix to address this compatibility issue.
• For EMPro generated emModel used in EM co-simulation, visualization will not work in ADS 2014.01.
  Workaround: To see field plots, use layout components instead of emModels used in EM co-simulations.
• If you see a failure while doing a 3D FEM simulation, creating a 3D view from ADS layout, or when exporting a design from ADS layout to EMPro, check for either of the following error messages:
  • RuntimeError: Unable to create a new Eigenmode simulation because the simulation settings are invalid. The invalidity message is: Eigenmode simulation cannot have absorbing boundary conditions.
  • RuntimeError: Unable to create a new FEM simulation because the simulation settings are invalid. The invalidity message is: FEM 2D Port solver requires waveguide ports
    Workaround: Open up EMPro and check the selected simulator in the Simulation toolbar. If it is set to FEM Eigenmode Simulation or FEM 2D Port Simulation, change the selection to be FEM Simulation and save the opened EMPro design.
• The FEM LSF cluster simulation may fail with the error "Cannot find a license file or connect to a license server".
  Workaround: Specify the ADS license file or server in the file .eesoflic in your home directory on the LSF cluster. This can be done by adding a line of the form
  ADS_LICENSE_FILE=<license file name or server name>
  to the .eesoflic file.
• The ADS to EMPro export is not compatible with EMPro 2011.12 or older. Use EMPro 2012.09 or later.
• FEM simulations and viewing field and current plots in the 3D viewer are not supported in case the workspace path has international characters. The FEM simulations can be executed if the name of the simulation directory specified in the emSetup resources tab is set to a location without international characters.
• In case of a FEM simulation with one or multiple calibrated ports, the following warning may appear ("Warning detected by hpeesofsim during netlist flattening. Simulation results may be incorrect. Errors encountered when looking for S11 (orY11/Z11/H11/G11) in the file: ..."). In this case either use a citi file or the layout component or 3D component infrastructure to use the FEM simulation results as part of the circuit simulation.

Circuit Simulation

• While sharing through the product Cisco Webex, the second circuit simulation can hang the running ADS session.
  Workaround: Change or add the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WebEx\AppSharing\DisableSharingIndicator to be equal to zero. The following is reg file example for this setting
  • Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
  • [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WebEx\AppSharing]
  • "DisableSharingIndicator"=dword:00000000
• Certain user-compiled mint models are not threadsafe.
  Workaround: You should recompile the model or run the model as single threaded.
• Verilog-AMS is not supported on SUSE11 platform using ADS2014.01.

Data Display

• The evm() measurement expression can be slow when large amounts of swept data are processed. To workaround this problem you will need to reduce the amount of data being processed. This can normally be done by increasing the step size of the sweep or reducing the range of the data being processed.

PCB Links

This first release of ADS Board Link includes coverage of most ADS 2012.08 and 2013.06 features. Some complex capabilities of ADS and new features of ADS 2014.01 are not supported completely in this release. These include:

• Nested technology support
• Complex component instances - these include most simulation controllers and other components with complex parameters
• New layout features such as route/via objects and ground fill structures
• Most IC Interoperability features, such as CDF item definitions and new IC-style pins
• Automatic EM/Circuit Partitioning

Artwork Translators

• The GDSII translator was replaced in ADS 2011 and later versions with the OpenAccess-compatible version. A performance issue may be observed for GDSII imports. For large GDSII files (with more than 50 stream structures) GDSII import may take longer time than ADS 2011.10.

Budget Analysis

• Budget analysis might fail if ADS is installed on Windows 8 platform.
  Workaround: Use other supported platforms.

PDKs

• If you make changes in the View-Specific Configuration tab of the Design Parameters dialog box, an itemdef.ael file may get created in the cell of the component. You can ignore this and delete it if you don't require demand loading. The Item definitions will be loaded as they were prior to this file getting created.
• When a project is converted to workspace, there is a chance that string type parameters of some components may show invalid values. To get the correct parameter values, open the Component Parameter dialog box, click on the editable parameter and hit Apply button. If a large number of components need to be modified please contact Keysight for better support.
• The PDKs created by RFIP Encoder still contains some files and folders which are obsolete in the ADS2011 and onwards. You can ignore them.
• ADS may issue a warning message requesting that you contact your foundries for an updated PDK. This warning message appears when popping out of the design hierarchy in a layout window, or using the Edit>Component>Update Component Definitions menu option. We are working closely with foundries to update these PDKs. PDK Users can determine whether a PDK needs to be repaired by calling de_check_and_report_pcell_parameters_in_library() from the ADS Command Line. If you are the owner of a PDK, you can fix the PDK using de_update_pcell_parameters_in_library(), as described in the PDK Documentation.

PDK Builder

• PDK Builder is not fully functional on Linux.
• If a PDK is re-generated using the PDK Builder at the same location as was created earlier, the technology library inside this PDK will be deleted.
  Workaround: Delete the PDK before re-generating it at the same location, through the PDK Builder.

Printing

• Printing now support custom paper sizes when set from the "Advanced Printer Setup" dialog. However, this capability is only active during the current session and must be reset when ADS is restarted.
• When using an SVG or PDF file generated using the ADS printer interface in other applications the fonts used in the file may not be found by the other application. When this occurs the text will be displayed using a different font that may not appear to be the same size as the original font used inside ADS. This is caused by the other application not being able to find the ADS fonts used in the SVG or PDF file. To workaround this issue install the ADS fonts into the local systems font configurations using the "fontconfig" or "xset" commands. The ADS fonts are located in the "$HPEESOF_DIR/lib/fonts" directory.

Verification

• Clicking the Desktop DRC "Cancel" button does not terminate a process called "jade," preventing DRC errors from being reported until jade is terminated.
  Workaround: Kill the jade process from the Operating System and run Desktop DRC again.

GGTools and Dynamic Link

• Cadence IC 5.1.41 (and other Cadence versions without 64-bit MPS libraries) will not work for GGTools and Dynamic Link. The rfdemp (GGTools) and idfmp (Dynamic Link) executable files are linked to Cadence 64-bit libraries. Only Cadence versions with 64-bit em_sh, mpsc_sh, cdsCommon_sh, and sman_sh libraries are supported. Supported Cadence versions are listed in $HPEESOF_DIR/idf/supported_cadence_versions.txt.
  Workaround: Use ADS 2013.06, 2012.08 or earlier versions of ADS for GGTools or Dynamic Link when using Cadence IC 5.1.41. Alternatively, Cadence IC 5.1.41 libraries can be converted to Cadence IC 6.1.4 or newer versions to use GGTools and Dynamic Link in ADS 2014.01.

DesignGuides

Examples

• Unable to compile Pin Diode Model using Visual Studio 2012 on Windows 7 64-bit platform.
  Workaround: Delete the contents of the directory examples/Tutorial/UserCompiledModel_wrk/UserCompiledModel/lib.win32_64 before using UCMs.

Documentation

• ADS online help is not supported on the Google Chrome browser.
  Workaround: Use Internet Explorer or Firefox to view ADS documentation.
• Do not install Vendor Libraries or Design Kits under $HPEESOF_DIR, otherwise the associated help links will not work.
• Mozilla Firefox version 3.0.5 crashes on RHEL 5 machine while accessing protected ADS on-line documentation from Qt Help window.
• If the ADS help does not show any content, throws an error, or does not display any search results.
  Workaround: Close the help and delete the contents of the following directory:
  • On Windows 7: C:\Users\<Windows_Login_ID>\AppData\Local\Agilent\Help
  • On Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows_Login_ID>\Local Settings\Application Data\Agilent\Help
  • On Linux: $HOME/.local/share/data/Agilent/Help

ADS 2009 Update 1 License Compatibility Hot Fix Available

ADS 2014 requires licenses with an updated version number (3.1). Per Keysight’s license backward compatibility policy, these new licenses will work with the ADS 2014.01 version, and the prior two major ADS releases (ADS 2012.08 and ADS 2011.01), as well as the interim minor releases (ADS 2013.06, ADS 2011.05, and ADS 2011.10). The new 3.1 version licenses will NOT work with ADS 2009 Update 1 or prior releases.

Keysight has decided to make an exception to this policy and has an ADS 2009 Update 1 hotfix available which will allow ADS 2009 Update 1 to work with 3.1 version licenses. You can download the hotfix by visiting https://edasupportweb.software.keysight.com/page/show_add_on?id=337055 (Knowledge Center password required).

If you have fully upgraded to ADS 2011/12/13 or ADS 2014, you do not need to download this hotfix. But if you would like access to both ADS 2014.01 and ADS 2009 Update 1 concurrently, or you require long term access to legacy ADS 2009 Update 1 designs, we recommend you to download and install the hotfix.