Virtuosity: Setting up License Preferences for ADE Products

Over a year ago when the new Virtuoso ADE product suite was released, we had our fingers crossed. Today, we feel immense pleasure to mention that the new Virtuoso ADE product suite is well-received by the ADE customers and has been getting appreciation across geographies. It's now evident that the newer products– Virtuoso ADE Explorer, Virtuoso  ADE Assembler, Virtuoso Variation Option, and Virtuoso ADE Verifier – are much more powerful, efficient, robust, and dynamic, and are gradually taking over their older counterparts. But,Cadence supports both set of products for now, and as the products are co-existing, it’s important to manage license usage and consumption among these products. 

I’ve ADE Explorer and Assembler Licenses. Can I Use Them to Open ADE L/XL/GXL?

Yes, the older set of products are very much supported with the new product licenses! As you have a mix of old and new ADE products available at the moment, you can open ADE L using the ADE Explorer or ADE Assembler licenses and ADE XL using the ADE Assembler license. Before we move ahead, let's get answers to some specific questions you may have in mind, such as:

• Is there a way that could help ensure that the old set of products consume their own licenses first, rather than utilizing the ADE Explorer or Assembler licenses?
• Can I keep the new product licenses only for the newer products, as I do not want old products to consume the new product licenses?

Well, if you are interested in setting up license preferences to control the license usage and checkout order among old and new set of ADE products, you’ll be glad to know that Cadence provides the adeMaestroCheckoutOrder environment variable, which you can set in your .cdsinit file or CIW as shown below:

envSetVal("asimenv" "adeMaestroCheckoutOrder" 'cyclic "ADE_Maestro")

You can control the license checkout order by setting this variable to one of the following values:

• ADE: When you set this variable to ADE, only ADE L, XL, or GXL licenses will be searched and used to run ADE L, XL, or GXL. It’s important to note that with this setting ADE Explorer or ADE Assembler licenses will never be used to run ADE L, XL, or GXL.

• ADE_Maestro: It is the default value. When it is set, ADE L, XL or GXL licenses will be searched first to run these tools. If these licenses are not available, ADE Explorer and ADE Assembler licenses will be searched and used when found.

• Maestro: When this value is set, only ADE Explorer and ADE Assembler licenses will be searched and used to run ADE L, XL, or GXL. Note that with this setting, ADE Explorer or ADE Assembler licenses are always used to run ADE L, XL, or GXL. In this case, the following license checkout order is followed:
  • • ADE L: ADE Explorer - ADE Assembler
    • ADE XL and GXL: ADE Assembler

• Maestro_ADE: When this value is set, ADE Explorer and ADE Assembler licenses will be searched and used first. If they are not available, ADE L or XL licenses are searched and used. In this case, the following license checkout order is followed:
• •  ADE L: ADE Explorer - ADE Assembler - ADE L - ADE XL - ADE GXL
  • ADE XL and GXL: ADE Assembler - ADE XL - ADE GXL

Can I Set Up License Preferences to Open ADE Explorer and ADE Assembler?

Yes, you can! The checkoutOrder environment variable helps control the license checkout order for ADE Explorer and Assembler. Here’s how you can set it in your .cdsinit file or CIW:

 envSetVal("maestro.license" "checkoutOrder" 'cyclic "Explorer_Assembler")

 You can set this variable to one of the following  values:

• Explorer_Assembler: This is the default value. When this value is set, the ADE Explorer license will be searched first to open a maestro cellview. If it is not available, then ADE Assembler license will be searched and used. However, it is important to note that with the ADE Explorer license, you can open the maestro view in ADE Explorer only. To open ADE Assembler, you need to obtain its license.

• Assembler_Explorer: When this value is set, the ADE Assembler license is searched first to open a maestro cellview. If it is not available, then ADE Explorer license is searched and used.

• Explorer: When set, only ADE Explorer license will be searched and used.

• Assembler: When set, only ADE Assembler license will be searched and used.

Related Resources

• Virtuoso ADE Explorer User Guide
  • checkoutOrder
• Virtuoso ADE L User Guide
  • adeMaestroCheckoutOrder
• Virtuoso Software Licensing and Configuration User Guide
• New Virtuoso ADE Product Suite Knowledge Resource Kit

 For more information on Cadence circuit design products and services, visit www.cadence.com.

 About Virtuosity

Virtuosity has been our most viewed and admired blog series for a long time that has brought to fore some lesser known, yet very useful software and documentation improvements, and also shed light on some exciting new offerings in Virtuoso. We are now expanding the scope of this series by broadcasting the voice of different bloggers and experts, who would continue to preserve the legacy of Virtuosity, and try to give new dimensions to it by covering topics across the length and breadth of Virtuoso, and a lot more…Click Subscribe to visit the Subscription box at the top of the page in which you can submit your email address to receive notifications about our latest Virtuosity posts. Happy Reading!

Ashu Vashishtha