This document is a collection of all of the questions and other problems we've been seeing with MAX, HSPICE, and Linux in general. This will be updated to include calibre DRC and MCC issues.
Q1.1: How do I get help on unix commands?
Q1.2: Why does the machine crash when I log in?
Q1.3: Why does it take so long for the account/program to come up?
Q1.4: Can I run MAX/HSPICE/NST remotely?
Q2.1: How do I extract a design to a Spice file?
Q2.2: I can not use spice simulator in SUE. It gives me error: ecipc054.engr.ucsb.edu: Connection refused.
Q2.3: What simulators are supported in SUE?
Q2.4: How can I customize my default spice header file?
Q2.5: How to plot out my MAX layouts?
Q2.6: Has MCC tutorial been installed yet?
Q3.1: HSPICE runs okay, but the circuit didn't work!
Q3.2: How to use NST print features?
Lab 1
Lab 2
Lab 3
Check your .cshrc file, as there is probably an error in it. First of all, reset the machine you just crashed (yeah, it shouldn't do that, but that's ECI's problem). Now, pick a different (running) Linux machine and press <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<F1>. You will see the monitor switch to text mode and you should see a login prompt. Log in here, and watch for any error messages that come up. They will provide you with clues as to what is wrong. Edit your .cshrc file using a text-mode editor (pico is probably the easiest). After you finish editing your .cshrc file, type logout at the prompt to log out, then try logging back in again. If you are successful, you will not get an error, otherwise repeat the above steps. Once you get it working, log out and press <Alt>+<F7> to return to X Windows and try logging in again.
Check the files in your account -- if you have been here for several years,
you probably have files which have addresses that are no longer available.
(Some installation scripts report the physical mounting address of a disk
-- not the virtual one you need to use.) The problem will manifest as an interminable delay on either starting
a program or in simply logging in. Look for files and links which point
to places that no longer exist on the ECI file system -- type: ls -al
and you should get a listing of all the files
-- when they were last modified and for links -- where they link to. On Linux, the directories: .gnome .kde and the like
are your personal environment data --
usually if these are not present, deleting them (rm -rf <file
name> ) will force the associated manager to rebuild them. This will
lose you any personalization settings, but may also remove links to inactive
files... The most
prevalent cause of such links seems to be old windows media downloads
and support files. If you have a persistent, non-tool related problem:
contact support@eci.ucsb.edu.
Yes, but I'll let you figure that out on your own :). Just one
word of advice: Don't use telnet!!! Use ssh instead, unless of course you
like having your password sent in plain text over the 'net.... (really bad
idea). For ssh,
you need to enable tunneling from the xserver you are running on. (It
should be enabled on the ECI machines.)
Screen repaints will be somewhat slower.
Unfortunately, you can't run max outside of the Engineering network
as you need to get keys from the key
server -- same issue with Hspice. You can run bspice anywhere
as it is public domain -- be sure to setup the
technology correctly as not all hspice models are supported on bspice.
First, do Calibre DRC check on your design. Then open a terminal window and run rc_ext script. This will generate netlist.distributed and netlist.distributed.pex files in the same directory. These two files contain your design netlist and its parasitic information. Refer to HSpice menu on how to setup a test environment to use the netlist.
You are using old version of spice script. Contact your TA for solution.
Currently only SPICE and SIM simulation modes are supported and tested
by SUE in ECI lab. If you want to use verilog codes to do the simulation,
you can use SUE to generate the verilog netlist first, then use MODELSIM
to do the simulation. ModelSim is located at: /eci/mentor/modeltech/bin/
You can copy the system default header file from ($MMI_TOOLS/../mmi_local/sue/ucsb25_spice_header.h)
into your local mmi folder: (~/mmi_private/sue/ucsb25_spice_header.h).
Then you can modify the file the way you want.
You can use HotPlot to plot out your layout design. HotPlot has been installed
on both SUN and Linux worstations and the package is located at /eci/mentor/hotplot/bin/.
Two programs within the package are useful for ECI lab: hpplot and psplot. hpplot is for HP plotter and psplot is for PostScript printers. Both programs are powerful yet complicated to use. To simplify the usage, We have written a script for you to use: type "hplot [layout.gds]" to plot out your design to HP color printer in ECI lab. hplot only takes standard .gds format layout files. There are many ways to generate the .gds file in MAX: you can either export your design to GDSII with the "File->Export File..." manual or use "Tool->Calibre DRC..." to generate it for you.
Please refer to Chapter 6 of HotPlot user guide for information on other
features including plotting out GDSII library that contains more than one
cell. The manual is located at: /eci/mentor/hotplot/hotplot/doc/ref/hotplot_useref.pdf
There are dozens of reasons why your design may not be simulating properly, here's some of the reasons that I can think of.
First of all, take a look at your design in MAX. Check to make sure you didn't miswire anything. Make sure there are no DRC errors, everything is wired, and all the needed labels are present.
Next, check the power supply. In NST, take a look at nodes 0 and 1 (which are ground and power, respectively). They should be at 0 volts for node 0 and 2.5 volts for node 1. If not, make the VDD line in your Spice file look like the one shown in question 2.1. (This is likely if you used the instructions from Lab 1, as this method of modifying the Spice file will not currently work.)
Check the power and ground labels. They both need to be global, and they need to be named "Vdd!" and "GND!". These labels are case-sensitive! In MAX, these labels will be shown with an exclamation point in front of the name to indicate they are global (you do not add this to the name, this is done by selecting the "global" attribute).
NST uses command "lpr -r" to output waveform to the printer. Default printer destination has to be setup in order to allow NST to print. Use command "lpq" in a terminal window to check if default printer has been set. The following is a typical output of "lpq" command:
chao@linux20:~> lpq
Local Queue 'lp' (linux20.engr.ucsb.edu, ECI E1 lab Laserwriter 2):
Ready since Oct 16 12:13:54.
Remote Queue 'e1ps2-eci2' (eci2.ucsb.edu, ECI E1 lab Laserwriter 2):
Ready since Oct 16 12:20:23.
JetDirect lpd: no jobs queued on this port
In this case, 'e1ps2-eci2' is the default printer. When you try to print the waveform from NST, the output will be on printer 'e1ps2'.
Currently NST's PRINT-TO-DEFAULT-PRINTER and PRINT-TO-FILE features only work in SUN workstation.
Last updated October 22, 2002