Cadence Design Systems offers quite a few pieces of software that are used for designing computer hardware.  This document will talk about the most popular options used at UMD and how to access them.  Most of the available software packages from Cadence run on Linux but there are a few that run on Windows.

For issues running virtuoso or other programs using SSH, please see this article on using secure shell access.  If you are having issues with displaying graphics, please reference the secure shell access article.

Windows

• ORCAD/Allegro/SPB (sometimes referred to as PSPICE)
  • Available for student use in the virtual computer lab under Cadence 17_2 Design Entry CIS.
  • Available in some ECE computer labs as well.
• Datacenter Design
  • Available by request.

Linux

• Integrated Circuit
  • The main product used at UMD is Virtuoso.
  • Available in Glue/TerpConnect
    • ssh compute.ece.umd.edu (click here for more information)
    • module load cadenceIC/618 (this is IC 6.18)
    • virtuoso
    • North Carolina State University CDK is available for some versions of Cadence as well.
• Support options
  • There are a dizzying array of software and support options.  If you need documentation, please contact eit-help@umd.edu.
  • If you ask for something like all of the documentation on IC 6.18, you will get a clarification response asking for specifics.  There are hundreds of documents that fall under this category.  You need to be specific.
  • The team that responds to eit-help@umd.edu is Engineering IT Operations and we do not have expertise in using the Cadence suite of software. We can point you to groups that do use different Cadence tools or we can provide specific documentation. We can also troubleshoot licensing issues.
• Common problems
  • If you see errors related to running out of processes, you may have been enrolled in a CS or ECE class that instructed you to add a process limitation in your profile to prevent issues.  This will cause problems with Cadence software products.
    • Go to your home space and look at your .cshrc.mine (most likely) and .bashrc.mine (less likely but good to check).
      • cd ~
      • vi (or emacs or whatever editor you use) .cshrc.mine
        • Look for ulimit or limit maxprox or limit process or something similar 
        • Add a comment by putting a "#" sign at the beginning of the line that has this in it.
      • exit
    • Log back in and your issue should be resolved
  • If you still have process related problems after doing the previous troubleshooting, you may have processes that are still running.
    • ps -ef | grep <username> (there are many ways to do this but ps by itself will only show your current session processes)
    • You can use kill or killall to get rid of unwanted processes that you own.
      • https://www.howtoforge.com/linux-killall-command/