General Information
Cadence is an Electronic Design Application (EDA) suite that is commonly used to design VLSI Integrated Circuits. Michigan Technological University has implemented this product across campus and has been custom-configured for our Linux Lab infrastructure.
The software design suite is a collaborative set of contributions from a community of developers. The suite comprises several modules (also referred to as products), some of which are built as standalone modules, while others are designed in conjunction with one another. Additionally, not all modules are cross-platform. [ex: The Integrated Circuit (IC) component that contains Virtuoso is Red Hat Linux only]
The Linux Labs at Michigan Technological University contain several Cadence components, as depicted on the Linux Lab Software List.
Michigan Tech Customizations
The Cadence software suite is an intricate collection of intercommunicating applications. At Michigan Tech, we have customized the installation of Cadence to reflect our unique use cases. To make this utility more user-friendly, we have created several utilities so that students can run this powerful suite of tools within a pre-configured environment.
After running Cadence, it will configure a variety of files in your home directory (~/) that manage the environment:
~/cds.lib~/libManager.log~/.csdenv~/.cdsinit
Depending on which component you run, it might create additional files/folders. If any of these files requires a reset, delete the file and rerun Cadence from the command-line (terminal) to replace it:
/usr/local/bin/cadence
If your custom library is missing from your Virtuoso library, you need to add the path to your library inside your cds.lib file so the application can locate it.
Components and Design Kits
Our build consists of five components and two design kits currently, but subject to change:
Components
- Integrated Circuits (virtuoso)
- Spectre
- SPB (Allegro X)
- Conformal
- Pegasus
Design Kits
- North Carolina State University CDK (NCSU)
- Skywater Technologies (PDK)
Technical Support
Michigan Tech IT supports getting Cadence back to its original working state. Customizations, additional configurations, or any modifications to the original state as it was built will not be supported or investigated by IT except to remove and rebuild the package.