Preface
The Spectre® simulation platform contains a set of simulation technologies for circuit design and verification. It supports multiple netlist formats, all standard device models, a large variety of large and small signal analyses, design checking features, a large set of output formats, and advanced analyses like EMIR, RF, and device reliability.
Different simulation engines are integrated into the platform – Spectre SPICE engine, Spectre Accelerated Parallel Simulator (APS) for high-precision SPICE and scalable multi-core simulation performance, Spectre X Simulator for high-performance, high-capacity simulation to handle the largest pre- and post-layout designs with analog accuracy, which also includes extensive distribution capabilities designed to maximize a cloud or server farm use model, Spectre Extensive Partitioning Simulator (Spectre XPS), an advanced FastSPICE engine, which provides high performance simulation for SRAM, DRAM, and flash designs, and the Spectre FX simulator, the next-generation FastSPICE simulator from Cadence. With Spectre AMS Designer, you can mix any of the above analog solvers with the Cadence® Xceliumâ„¢ Parallel Logic Simulator.
Besides the comprehensive set of basic analyses, the Spectre circuit simulator and Spectre X provide the RF simulation capabilities to verify RF and communication circuits, such as mixers, oscillators, sample holds and switched-capacitor filters.
Additional information on the Spectre RF simulation option is covered in the Spectre Circuit Simulator and Accelerated Parallel Simulator RF Analysis User Guide.
This user guide assumes that you are familiar with:
- The development, design, and simulation of integrated circuits.
- SPICE simulation.
- Virtuoso® Analog Design Environment (ADE).
Licensing
Cadence offers both ala carte pricing plus a unique multi-mode simulation (MMSIM) license that can enable the Spectre simulation platform. Spectre circuit simulator, Spectre APS, Spectre® XPS, Spectre® X, and Spectre® FX are the base products. The features provided in these base products are listed in Table A-1, Table A-2, and Table A-3. In addition, the options available across each of these base products are listed in Table A-4. Both the base products and the options are accessible using Spectre MMSIM tokens.
For details on Spectre FX license requirements, see Spectre FX Circuit Simulator User Guide.
For additional details on licensing, pricing and packaging contact your account manager.
Table A-1 Spectre® Circuit Simulator
| Spectre Circuit Simulator Features |
|---|
Table A-2 Spectre® Accelerated Parallel Simulator (Spectre APS)
| Spectre APS Single-Core Features |
|---|
Table A-3 Spectre eXtensive Partitioning Simulator (Spectre XPS)
Table A-4 Spectre Options for Spectre, Spectre APS, Spectre XPS, Spectre X, and Spectre FX
License Requirement for Spectre FMC
The Spectre FMC Option license enables Spectre FMC Analysis. You can also use MMSIM tokens. Contact Cadence Customer Support for more details.
Legato Reliability Solution License
The Legato reliability solution license, which is a pack of 6 tokens (that are not the same as MMSIM tokens), is required to run the following reliability features. Contact Cadence Customer Support for more details.
Table A-5 Legato Reliability Tokens
License Checkout Order
The order in which the license features are checked out is determined either by a default checkout order or by a customized order that can be defined using the +lorder option. Spectre, Spectre APS, Spectre XPS, and Spectre X check for a license in the order specified using the +lorder licenseList option. Note that mixing of ala carte license and Spectre MMSIM tokens is not allowed.
To make it easier to specify license names with the +lorder option, a representative mnemonic license has been provided, as shown in Table A-6.
Table A-6 Mnemonic License Names and Corresponding License Feature
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You can specify the following for licenseList:
+lorder PRODUCT - Spectre attempts to check out the product and options combination licenses only. If the licenses are not available, Spectre generates an error.
+lorder MMSIM - Spectre attempts to check out the Virtuoso_Multi_mode_Simulation (Spectre MMSIM) tokens only.
+lorder PRODUCT:MMSIM - Spectre attempts to check out product licenses first. If product licenses are not available, Spectre attempts to check out Spectre MMSIM tokens.
+lorder MMSIM:PRODUCT - Spectre attempts to check out Spectre MMSIM tokens first. If the tokens are not available Spectre attempts to check out product licenses.
The default license checkout order for features in Spectre, Spectre APS, Spectre XPS, and Spectre X base products is PRODUCT:MMSIM.
Using License Queuing
You can turn on license queuing by using the lqtimeout command line option:
spectre +lqtimeout time_in_seconds
If a license is not available when you begin a simulation job, the Spectre circuit simulator waits in queue for a license for the specified time. If you specify the value 0 for this option, the Spectre circuit simulator waits indefinitely for a license. The lqtimeout option has no default value for the standalone Spectre circuit simulator. If you invoke Spectre through the Analog Design Environment, the default value for lqtimeout is 900 seconds. You can use the lqsleep option to specify the interval (in seconds) at which the Spectre circuit simulator should check for license availability. The default value for lqsleep is 30 seconds.
spectre +lqsleep interval
For more information on any of the above options, see spectre -h.
Suspending and Resuming Licenses
You can direct Spectre to release licenses when suspending a simulation job. This feature is aimed for users of simulation farms, where the licenses in use by a group of lower priority jobs may be needed for a group of higher priority jobs.
To enable this feature, simply start Spectre with the +lsuspend command line option. Press ctrl+z to suspend the simulation run and release the licenses. All licenses are checked in. To resume simulation, press fg. These keystrokes may not work if you have changed the default key bindings. You can also use the kill command to suspend and resume the simulation. You can suspend a simulation with kill -s TSTP <pid>. To resume the simulation, type kill -s CONT <pid>.
TSTP signal. Resume jobs by sending the CONT signal."For information on tracking token licensing, see the Virtuoso® Software Licensing and Configuration Guide.
In Virtuoso® ADE Product Suite, the lqtimeout and lqsleep options are controlled by the following options:
spectre.envOpts lsuspend boolean t
spectre.envOpts licQueueTimeOut string "900"
spectre.envOpts licQueueSleep string "30"
Related Documents for Spectre
This user guide contains information about the functionality. The following documents provide more information about Spectre RF and related products.
- The Spectre circuit simulator is often run within the analog circuit design environment, under the Cadence design framework II. To see how the Spectre circuit simulator is run under the analog circuit design environment, read the Virtuoso ADE Explorer User Guide and Virtuoso ADE Assembler User Guide.
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To learn more about specific parameters of components and analyses, consult the Spectre online help (
spectre -h). - To learn more about the equations used in the Spectre circuit simulator, consult the Spectre Circuit Simulator Components and Device Models Reference manual.
- To learn about the next-generation FastSPICE simulator, Spectre FX, see Spectre FX Circuit Simulator User Guide.
- The Spectre circuit simulator also includes a waveform display tool, Virtuoso Visualization and Analysis tool, to use to display simulation results. For more information about the tool, see the Virtuoso Visualization and Analysis XL User Guide.
- For more information about using the Spectre circuit simulator with Verilog-A, see the Cadence Verilog-A Language Reference manual.
- For more information about RF theory, see Spectre Circuit Simulator RF Analysis Theory.
- For more information about how you work with the design framework II interface, see Cadence Design Framework II Help.
- For more information about specific applications of Spectre analyses, see The Designer’s Guide to SPICE & Spectre1.
Third Party Tools
To view any .swf multimedia files, you need:
- Flash-enabled web browser, for example, Internet Explorer 5.0 or later, Netscape 6.0 or later, or Mozilla Firefox 1.6 or later. Alternatively, you can download Flash Player (version 6.0 or later) directly from the Adobe website.
- Speakers and a sound card installed on your computer for videos with audio.
Typographic and Syntax Conventions
This list describes the syntax conventions used for the Spectre circuit simulator.
References
Text within brackets ([ ]) is a reference. See Appendix A, References of the Spectre Circuit Simulator Reference manual for more detailed information.
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