About IFF Translation for Mentor Graphics

Agilent Technologies and Mentor Graphics Corporation 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 Advanced Design System (ADS) and Mentor Graphics 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 Boardstation from Mentor Graphics Corporation.

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.

Boardstation

Boardstation from Mentor Graphics Corporation is an integrated environment for generation of PC Boards. Boardstation contains both a schematic tool (Design Architect), and a physical layout tool. The IFF interface to Boardstation will specifically only work with Library Management System (LMS) libraries, and the special library that is provided with Mentor's RF Architect product. RF Architect is a special add-on to the Boardstation environment that allows the standard ADS palette of components to be used within Mentor Graphics. Additionally, it enables the user to create parameterized layout instances, which is a requirement when generating transmission line components in a PC Board environment.

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. Mentor Graphics has also created an IFF translator for use with Boardstation. 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 Mentor Graphics design environment resulting in the following benefits:

Avoids 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 Boardstation and vice versa
Export IFF files from ADS to Boardstation 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 RF-Board Designers. It is assumed that the designer using the IFF translators has some working knowledge of both Advanced Design System and Mentor Graphics Boardstation.

Main Requirements

To enable the successful IFF translation of an RF Board design between ADS and Mentor Graphics Boardstation, you must ensure that the following requirements are met:

The link between IFF and the Mentor Graphics design environment is available and installed. The IFF translator for Mentor Graphics is a part of RF Architect.
The component libraries used for creating the schematic in ADS and Design Architect have been implemented to support translation via IFF. For more detailed information on library requirements, refer to Understanding Component Library Requirements. If equivalent libraries have not been set up for Mentor Graphics components in ADS, the Mentor Graphics components will not be usable in simulations.

Note Agilent Technologies supports the IFF Import and Export tools for ADS. Mentor Graphics is responsible for the RF Architect product, which includes ADS equivalent part libraries, as well as IFF Import and IFF export. ADS and Mentor IFF products are licensed separately. Contact Mentor Graphics for information on IFF translation availability for Boardstation.

The IFF Transfer Process

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

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

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

IFF Schematic and Layout 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 set up and use the software, and showing you where you can get more information as you need it. This manual contains the following:

Before Using the IFF Translators describes how to configure your Mentor Graphics environment to support IFF translation between ADS and Boardstation. This chapter also discusses some of the issues related to IFF schematic translation in the ADS and Boardstation 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 Files into Mentor Graphics describes the procedure for importing an IFF file into Boardstation for use in Design Architect.

Exporting Designs to IFF from Boardstation describes the procedure for exporting a Design Architect Schematic to an IFF file from Boardstation.

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

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

About Design Translation

It is highly recommended that the IFF Translator be used for schematic and layout translation only when compatible component libraries exist 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 Mentor Graphics 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 Mentor Graphics to ADS, Agilent Technologies Solution Services can provide you with specialized tools and help. For more information, contact your Agilent Technologies sales representative.