About IFF Schematic Translation for Cadence

Agilent Technologies and Cadence Design Systems both offer powerful EDA design tools. Many of today's design engineers prefer to use a combination of these tools to take advantage of the strengths of both design environments. Because of this desire to use multiple tools, Agilent Technologies has developed the Intermediate File Format translators as a method for transferring designs between the Agilent Technologies Advanced Design System (ADS) and Cadence environments.

Intermediate File Format (IFF) is an ASCII file format that is both platform and application independent. The file has a simple, line-oriented command structure with a fairly rich set of constructs, thus simplifying design transfer. The IFF translators offered by Agilent Technologies provide a means for transferring IFF files between Advanced Design System and third-party electronic design automation (EDA) tools such as Design Framework II (DFII) from Cadence Design Systems.

Advanced Design System

Advanced Design System has been developed specifically to simulate the entire communications signal path. This unique solution integrates the widest variety of proven RF, DSP, and electromagnetic design tools into a single, flexible environment. Building on years of expertise developing new technologies for our EDA tools, Advanced Design System provides a broad range of high-performance capability. This makes it easy to explore design ideas, then model the electrical and physical design of the best candidates.

Virtuoso Schematic Composer

The Virtuoso Schematic Composer from Cadence Design Systems is a hierarchical design entry tool used by RFIC circuit designers. Useful for both analog and digital designs, the database created is accessible by the Cadence simulation and physical layout tools. The tool supports multi-sheet schematics, including cross-referencing, symbol creation, automatic HDL cell template generation, global nets and hierarchical property definition for most database objects. The tool also provides hierarchical checking of connectivity, consistency of different cell representations and label attachments.

The IFF Translator

The IFF translator provided by Agilent Technologies is an EDA framework integration software product that stores circuit component and connectivity information. This product enables you to exchange design information between ADS and other EDA frameworks that provide an IFF interface. Agilent's IFF Interface enables you to generate IFF files from ADS Schematic information as well as receive IFF files from other design environments that support IFF translation. Agilent Technologies has also developed an IFF translator for use with Cadence DFII. The combination of these two translators enables you to share schematics between the two EDA design tools.

IFF Interface Major Benefits

The IFF Interface enables you to translate schematic information between Advanced Design System and the Cadence design environment resulting in the following benefits:

• Avoiding re-entry of designs
• Helps eliminate the possibility of errors in design re-entry
• Time savings

IFF Interface Major Features

Key features of the IFF Interface enable you to:

• Import IFF files into ADS from DFII and vice versa
• Export IFF files from ADS to DFII and vice versa
• Preserve circuit component and connectivity information during transfer

Intended Audience

The audience intended for this manual consists of CAD System Administrators and RFIC Designers. It is assumed that the designer using the IFF translators has some working knowledge of both Advanced Design System and Cadence DFII.

Main Requirements

To enable the successful IFF translation of an RFIC schematic design between ADS and Cadence DFII, you must ensure that:

• The link between IFF and the Cadence design environment is available and installed.
• The component libraries used for creating the schematic in ADS and DFII have been implemented to support translation via IFF. For more detailed information on library requirements, refer to Understanding Component Library Requirements.

Note The link between IFF and DFII for IC design is developed and supported directly by Agilent Technologies. Agilent Technologies is generally not responsible for the development or support of the link between IFF and other 3rd party frameworks. Contact your 3rd party framework vendor for information on IFF translation availability.

The IFF Transfer Process

Once the main requirements have been satisfied, your schematic can be transferred between Advanced Design System and Cadence DFII. Importing and exporting can be initiated from either EDA design environment.

The diagram shown in IFF Schematic Transfer Use Model describes the general use model for translating a design using the IFF Interface as it applies to Advanced Design System and Cadence DFII. The link between the two EDA environments is established via the ADS and DFII IFF Interface. The two component libraries in both ADS and DFII must be compatible to support an IFF translation.

For more information on the library requirements, refer to Before Using the IFF Translators.

IFF Schematic Transfer Use Model

What's in this Manual

The goal of this manual is to help you get started, providing relevant examples that teach you how to setup and use the software, and showing you where you can get more information as you need it. This manual contains:

• Before Using the IFF Translators describes how to configure your Cadence design environment to support IFF translation between ADS and DFII. This chapter also discusses some of the issues related to IFF schematic translation in the ADS and DFII environments.

• Importing IFF Schematic Files into ADS describes the procedure for importing an IFF file into an Advanced Design System Schematic.

• Exporting IFF Schematic Files from ADS describes the procedure for exporting an ADS Schematic to an IFF file from Advanced Design System.

• Importing IFF Schematic Files into DFII describes the procedure for importing an IFF file into DFII for use in Virtuoso Schematic Composer.

• Exporting IFF Schematic Files from DFII describes the procedure for exporting a Composer Schematic to an IFF file from DFII.

About Design Translation

It is highly recommended that the IFF Translator be used only for schematic translation in the presence of compatible component libraries in the two environments that have been developed to support this translation process. The IFF Translator can also be used to perform partial translation of a Cadence library into an ADS library and vice versa. To complete the translation task however, a significant amount of manual intervention is required.

This manual exclusively covers the schematic translation aspect of IFF translations. If you're interested in translating a component library from Cadence to ADS or vice versa, Agilent Technologies Solution Services can provide you with specialized tools and help. For more information, contact your Agilent Technologies sales representative.

For information about Spectre netlist to ADS translation, refer to the Netlist Translator for SPICE and Spectre manual.