Getting started

If you are a first time user of the Cadence software tools, you should give the following command from the UNIX prompt in a terminal window. (Note: the % indicates the UNIX prompt.)

% ~cdsadmin/bin/add_cds

This will create a cds directory in your home directory along with subdirectories for logfiles and such.  Now create an ecexxx subdirectory under the cds directory.  For the “xxx’  use the course number you are in.  For ece484 students do the following:

% cds

%add_project ece484 NTQD

Now you are all set up.   From now on after you login, the only thing you will ALWAYS have to do is issue the following command:

% cds

This sets up the Cadence tool environment.  The terminal window where you typed the above command can now only be used for running the Cadence tools.  Mentor Graphics tools are no longer accessible from this terminal window.  ALWAYS give the cds command before trying to use Cadence.

To actually compile and simulate Verilog code using Cadence’s Verilog XL simulator type the following

% cd ~/cds/ece484/verilog.src

Save the first_example.v and first_example_tb.v files into the verilog.src directory and then issue the command

% verilog first_example_tb.v first_example.v

The testbench writes results out to the file first_example.out.

SIMvision is a viewer for simulation waveforms. 

Use these files (cnt8bit.v, cnt8bit_tb.v) to test it out.