Manuals >Release Notes >IC-CAP 2008 Addon 2 Release Notes
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Fixed Issues

IC-CAP 2008 Addon 2

User Interface

    • EDA00195901 — The user interface has been modified so the missing Redisplay button and Automatic Redisplay check box in the Cycle Plot Types folder in a BSIM4's plot window are now are visible.

Model-Specific

    • EDA00196927 — Beginning in HSPICE 2008.03-SP1, HSPICE license will time out in 1800 seconds for CAN_PIPE mode. User can customize the time of license timeout by setting variable HSPICE_LICENSE_TIMEOUT (unit by second). HSPICE_LICENSE_TIMEOUT is only valid for HSPICE 2008.03-SP1 or later version.
    • EDA00187974 — This issue was initially addressed in hotfix-20071001-toolkit, but did not make it into the next formal IC-CAP release (IC-CAP 2008). The BSIM3 package and code changes to the modeless tuner have been made to address this issue and has been formally delivered in IC-CAP 2008 Add-on 2.

Instrument-Specific

    • EDA00195661 — Changes to properly use the Delay for Timeouts options during measurements were added to the PNA and ENA drivers.
    • EDA00197088 — If the Agilent 5270 was fully configured with SMUs filling all slots, the data was not read correctly for some of the SMUs. The instrument driver has been updated to address this defect.
    • EDA00198380 — Resending the command CWFREQ during a measurement using the Agilent 4294 would turn off the calibration. The driver has been updated to no longer resend this command if the Agilent 4294 has a valid calibration enabled by first using IC-CAP to run the calibration sequence. If a manual calibration is performed, the IC-CAP variable, BYPASS_CV_CAL should be set.
    • EDA00196213 — The driver for the HP 5250 was updated to address this issue.

Simulator-Specific

    • The capability of simultaneous DC and /1/f nose simulation has been enhanced.
    • Saber simulator link on Linux is supported. The path of the Saber AIM shell interpreter (aimsh) must be specified in usersimulators.
    • The entry for SABER has been added to usersimulators for both PC and UNIX. The path of the AIM shell interpreter (aimsh) must be specified in usersimulators.
    • EDA00193707 — The message:
Error: Trying to set the descriptor on an array that has already been assigned
should no longer appear when simulating to Saber on Windows.

PEL

    • EDA00197758 — The icdbf_register_lsync_sweep function has been repaired.

Data Management

    • EDA00183313 — The ICCAP_VALUES feature for mdm files had a string length limited of 1024 characters. Exceeding this limit would cause IC-CAP to crash. Now IC-CAP automatically reallocate the required memory to hold the user defined string. Note that there will still be an upper limit based on the amount of computer memory.

Documentation

    • EDA00195966 — The documentation examples for the Plot Options setting has been updated.
    • EDA00186131 — Documentation for the ICCAP_FUNC "Display Plot" function has been added.

IC-CAP 2008 Addon 1

Model-Specific

    • In BSIM3, BSIM4, and PSP models, a new math function (* -1) was added to Diagrams window's Cycle Devices, Cycle Plot Types, and All Diagrams tabs.
    • The plot now updates correctly when tuning Vth in the Plot Optimizer.
    • When composing a scaled plot using the Diagrams window's All Diagrams tab, the error message no longer appears.
    • In BSIM3, BSIM4 and PSP models, if you add a plot in DC_Measure or DC_Extract, it is updated in the Diagrams window's Cycle Devices tab.
    • EDA00195901 — In BSIM3, BSIM4, and PSP, the Redisplay button no longer disappears from the Diagrams window's Cycle Plot Types tab.
    • In BSIM3, BSIM4 and PSP models, Automatic Redisplay is now marked as default and Options > Change Simulator and Circuits is available from every page.

IC-CAP 2008

User Interface

    • EDA00182980 — The Histogram y-axis labeling was corrected as follows:
     • When HISTOGRAM_NORMALIZATION is defined as TRUE, the y-label will be set as Normalized Number of Samples.
     • When HISTOGRAM_NORMALIZATION is defined as FALSE or not defined (by default, is FALSE), the y-label will be set as Number of Samples.

Model-Specific

    • EDA00192997 — IC-CAP no longer crashes when calling EEfet3_spars(), EEfet3_s2ckt(), or EEfet3_package() with 1port data instead of 2port data as the input argument.

Instrument-Specific

    • EDA00194688 — The HP 4145 instrument driver no longer identifies itself as another instrument during the IC-CAP Hardware Manager Rebuild phase.
    • EDA00179430 — An Agilent ENA driver is now available in IC-CAP 2008 that fully supports the E5071C series ENA RF network analyzers.
    • EDA00076126 — The Agilent B1500 instrument driver now correctly registers all 10 SMUs.
    • EDA00178522 — Modified 3 error messages in the IC-CAP PNA and ENA Network Analyzer drivers.
From:

     • For Internal Log Sweep: Start Frequency must be less than Stop Frequency.
     • 1 Sweep must have <= 202 points for Frequency List.
Edit Setup and Retry.
     • 3 Sweep must have <= 202 points for Frequency List.
Edit Setup and Retry.
To:

     • Start Frequency must be less than Stop Frequency.
     • LOG Sweep must have <= 202 points for Frequency List.
Edit Setup and Retry.
     • LIST Sweep must have <= 202 points for Frequency List.
Edit Setup and Retry.
    • EDA00193965 — When used with the Agilent PNA or ENA network analyzer, the WinCal software was putting the instrument into a real binary data format of FORM:BORD SWAP mode. The PNA and ENA drivers in IC-CAP were expecting the instruments to be in a real binary data format mode of FORM:BORD NORMal mode. When the instrument was in FORM:BORD SWAP mode, IC-CAP would read back zero data from the instrument.
Now in IC-CAP 2008, the PNA and ENA drivers will always make sure the instrument is in FORM:BORD NORM mode before reading in binary data. This ensures that IC-CAP will now get real binary data when reading back data from the instrument.

Measurement/Calibration

    • EDA00180888 — Calibration no longer continues past an Instrument not found error, which would then lead to a frequency range error.
    • EDA00192154 — The PNA driver now correctly sets up the averaging functionality of the PNA instrument.
    • EDA00115743 — A message in IC-CAP had been updated to no longer refer to a frequency list. For example, prior to IC-CAP 2008 you could see the following message box:
You are about to download the current measurement setup into the <instrument_name> frequency list.
Press OK to continue or Cancel to abort.

Now in IC-CAP 2008 you'll see the following message box:

You are about to download the current measurement setup into the <instrument_name>.
Press OK to continue or Cancel to abort.

Simulator-Specific

    • EDA00191709 — LSYNC Sweep INPUT has been enhanced to work with parameterized subcircuit netlists when using the ADS simulator. Additionally, the LSYNC sweep capability has been expanded to support not only DC simulations, but all supported simulations for this simulator.
    • EDA00184405 — IC-CAP now correctly parses the hpeesofsim output raw file that contains both S parameter and DC data. This caused the program to crash when you tried to switch the sweep orders.
    • EDA00181997 — Improved the algorithm to make sure the variable of master sweep is defined before its slave SYNC type sweep.
    • EDA00178176 — Enhanced IC-CAP to simulate high frequent noise and to output the following key HF noise parameters for any given biasing condition and frequency point: Noise Figure, Gamma Opt, Equivalent R Noise, Min Noise Figure, and Equivalent Noise Temperature
    • EDA00100636 — The IC-CAP parser is enhanced to enable the definition of variables that start with the following IC-CAP keywords: number, define, parameters, end, when, values, control section, options, and model.
    • EDA00192862 — In the usersimulator, example reference to the MNS simulator and references to the HP-UX platform were removed.
    • EDA00194069 — The crash caused by misconfigured simulator has been fixed.
    • EDA00194288 — Enhance the Saber input syntax (netlist tr() with tb=0 and specify xsampling from N to N by N to specify the points of data to read back.) to address a transient Saber issue.
    • EDA00192124 — A tab after the ADS component no longer causes a wrong circuit parser error message.
    • EDA00191025 — The LSYNC sweep setups are now able to be imported correctly even if the LSYNC was written to the MDM or setup before the referenced master.

PEL

    • EDA00193243 — The divide by zero error that could occur in the deriv transform has been fixed.
    • EDA00192917 — ICCAP_ARRAY functions and the sizeof() function now accepts string arguments and variable arguments at different levels (Model/DUT/Setup).
    • EDA00191059 — IC-CAP error messages are no longer deleted from the red error message dialog box when PEL error messages are deleted.
    • EDA00178590 — PEL actions Close Branch and Open Branch were added to support automatically opening and closing a DUT's setup branches.
    • EDA00178350 — The following PEL statements were added in IC-CAP 2008:
     • GET_STRING same as LINPUT — used to pass in string argument via a dialog or through an iccap_func() call.
     • GET_INT similar to LINPUT — used to pass in an integer argument via a dialog or through an iccap_func() call.
     • GET_REAL similar as LINPUT — used to pass in a real argument via a dialog or through an iccap_func() call.
     • GET_DATASET — used to pass in a dataset or array argument through an iccap_func() call. Only available from within Program2 PEL Programs.
Now in Program2 we preserve the current stack argument list when iccap_func calls are nested within Program2 calls. The older Program PEL program command, doesn't preserve the argument stack list after iccap_func calls.

The following PEL statements were also added:

     • GLOBAL_VAR used by Program2 to determine which variables are defined Globally vs. locally in a PEL Program2.
     • RETURN_VALUE used to return a single point of data vs. return data the size of the setup's input size.
    • EDA00192385 — The sizeof() function now accepts both string arguments and variable arguments such as sizeof(abc2) and sizeof("abc2").
    • EDA00194061 — Choosing the IC-CAP Exit button in the Studio window now exits IC-CAP immediately.

Data Management

    • EDA00191111 — ImportCreate now works with an LSYNC sweep type defined in the imported MDM file.
    • EDA00194018 — ImportCreate in the HF Noise Output now works correctly.

IC-CAP Studio

    • EDA00076021 — GUI Tab pages are no longer displayed incorrectly which caused IC-CAP to crash.

Miscellaneous

    • EDA00192072 — With the ADS 2008 release, a simplified licensing mechanism was implemented when the ADS simulator is invoked by IC-CAP to perform ADS simulations/optimizations with IC-CAP. Prior to the ADS 2008 release, ADS sim_linear and sim_transient license codewords were required to execute these simulations. With the new licensing mechanism, ADS simulations performed with IC-CAP will only require existing iccap_analysis licenses; therefore, ADS sim_linear and sim_transient codewords will no longer be included with IC-CAP license codeword updates.
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