About Design Kit Installation and Setup
Advanced Design System (ADS) from Agilent Technologies is a tool used by engineers for a variety of design applications, such as RFIC, System, MMIC, Hybrid or Board level design. In order to effectively use the design environment and to take advantage of its powerful simulation capabilities, designers must have a library of components that are linked to model files or simulation data.
For RFIC designers, the components and models are typically distributed by a foundry in the form of a design kit. A unique design kit is created for each process and each CAD tool. This kit is given to the foundry customer to use when designing their circuit.
To help RFIC designers become more successful with our electronic design automation (EDA) software, Agilent Technologies has been working with popular foundries to provide ADS components and translated model files for distribution by the foundry to the IC designer. Many customers are also creating design kits themselves.
Design kits in ADS are not beneficial only to RFIC designers. This library structure can be used for any technology or process to package and distribute a reusable set of components. With the information provided in this document, you can now easily install and manage all of your ADS Design Kits.
The intent of this manual is to provide instructions for unzipping, installing and setting up ADS Design Kits that will be used in your designs.
The ADS Design Kit Infrastructure has been developed and tested to provide you with a standard method for building, testing, installing and using ADS Design Kits within Advanced Design System. If you are interested in developing your own ADS Design Kit, refer to the ADS Design Kit Development documentation. You can also test your model file performance relative to other models using the ADS Design Kit Model Verification Toolkit. For more information on the verification toolkit, refer to the ADS Design Kit Model Verification documentation.
The content of this document addresses the installation and configuration of ADS Design Kits for ADS Front End and Front to Back design flows. For more information, refer to ADS Design Flows.
ADS Design Flows
Advanced Design System is a flexible tool that can be used on its own or in conjunction with other CAE tools in a variety of design flows. An engineer using the ADS Front to Back design flow enters a design in the ADS schematic editor and uses the ADS simulator for analysis. The layout is created in ADS by automatically generating it from the schematic or by manually creating the layout, or a combination of the two processes. Export tools are provided to transfer the layout to third party manufacturing tools.
The RF Design Environment (RFDE) for Cadence provides a tightly integrated EDA solution that enables RF/mixed-signal IC designers to simulate their designs directly in the Cadence environment using the ADSsim RF simulator. This enables the RF/MS IC customer to take advantage of complementary features provided by both Agilent Technologies and Cadence Design Systems. For more information on RFDE, refer to the Agilent EEsof EDA Home Page at http://eesof.tm.agilent.com/
An engineer using the ADS Front End design flow enters a design in the ADS schematic editor and uses the ADS simulator for analysis. The design is then re-entered in a separate layout tool. To validate the integrity of the layout, the ADS Netlist Exporter is used to create a netlist for layout vs. schematic comparison. For more information on Front End Design Flow, refer to the ADS Netlist Exporter documentation.
An engineer using the RFIC Dynamic Link Flow enters a design in Cadence Virtuoso Schematic Capture. The design is then dynamically linked via inter-process communication (IPC) for simulation in ADS. For more information on the RFIC Dynamic Link Flow, refer to Design Kit Development for RFDE and RFIC Dynamic Link in the ADS Design Kit Development documentation.
Minimum Requirements
The minimum requirement for using the design kit tools described in this document is Advanced Design System 2001 or later.
ADS Design Kit development has progressed to provide standards that enable ease of installation and use in Advanced Design System. If you have an old design kit that you would like to modify to function with the new ADS design kit tools, refer to the ADS Design Kit Development documentation. If you are not comfortable creating or modifying your own ADS Design Kits, contact Agilent EEsof EDA's Solution Services department or consult your Agilent Technologies representative.
Previous Versions of Design Kit Tools
Prior to ADS 2001, the Solution Services organization at Agilent EEsof EDA supplied a preliminary version of design kit software. This preliminary version of software was intended for use with design kits that they had created. To enable this software, the user was required to modify some configuration variables. It is assumed that the majority of ADS design kit users do not have any previous versions of the ADS design kit tools. However, if you have two design kit menus in the ADS Main window, or only have an old design kit menu displayed, you will need to make some modifications to your existing configuration to use the new tools effectively. While you will not need to add anything to any of your local files, you will need to either delete or comment out any old design kit configuration information to avoid conflicts with the new software.
For more information on design kit configuration and menus, refer to Setting Up Design Kit Software and Menus.
ADS Design Kit Tools Overview
Getting started is a simple process, as shown in the following figure ADS Design Kit Process.
ADS Design Kit Process
While several steps shown in ADS_Design_Kit_Process_are_listed_as_optional,_it_is_recommended_that_you_familiarize_yourself_with_all_of_the_capabilities_of_the_tool_to_maximize_your_experience._For_detailed_information_on_using_the_ADS_design_kit_tools,_refer_to_
Design Kit Customer Support
If you encounter problems installing or using a design kit that was obtained from a foundry or other distributor, you should first contact the design kit distributor. If the design kit developer determines that the problem is not with the design kit, they can forward the design kit to the Agilent EEsof EDA customer support department and work with Agilent Technologies to determine the problem. Please do not contact the Agilent EEsof EDA customer support department directly to report a problem with a design kit. This is because Agilent Technologies will not have access to the design kit unless it comes directly from the distributor.
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