Constraint Manager Product Notes

Product Version 14.2

January 2002
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 Constraint Manager Product Notes

Contents
Constraint Manager Product Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Product Notes for Release 14.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
System-level Custom Measurements and Custom Stimulus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Constraint Support in Concept HDL and Constraint Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Improved Cross-Probing support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Product Notes for Release 14.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Total Etch Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Relative Propagation Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Product Notes for Release 14.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Introducing Constraint Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

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 Constraint Manager Product Notes

Constraint Manager Product Notes

Product Version 14.2

January 2002

This document contains Product Notes for Releases 14.2, 14.1, and 14.0.

Product Notes for Release 14.2

These Product Notes include the following sections:
■ System-level Custom Measurements and Custom Stimulus
■ Constraint Support in Concept HDL and Constraint Manager
■ Improved Cross-Probing support

System-level Custom Measurements and Custom Stimulus

In previous releases, access to custom measurements or custom stimulus was limited to
SigXplorer.

In this release, Constraint Manager, with its global view of all nets in a board layout, greatly
simplifies the application of custom measurements and custom stimulus to a broad range of
nets.

In Constraint Manager, you can assign, manage, and analyze custom measurements and
custom stimulus. You define custom measurements and custom stimulus in SigXplorer, save
them as a topology file, and import them into Constraint Manager as part of an ECSet. Any
net-related object that references that ECSet inherits any custom measurement or custom
stimulus data that was captured in that ECSet.

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 Constraint Manager Product Notes
January 2002

Constraint Support in Concept HDL and Constraint Manager

In this release, you can concurrently create and modify electrical constraints in Concept HDL
and in Constraint Manager; design synchronization promotes the same constraint definitions
and modifications to and from the back-end database (Allegro) regardless of where you make
the changes.

Constraint edits made within either Constraint Manager or Concept HDL’s constraints view
are synchronized to one another. Additional improvements have been made in the Packager
and in netrev for passing netlist files between Concept HDL and Allegro or
SPECCTRAQuest.

Improved Cross-Probing support

As in previous releases, you can run Constraint Manager with companion tools such as
Concept HDL, SPECCTRAQuest, or Allegro/APD and select a net in Constraint Manager and
see the associated object highlight in the schematic, floorplanner, or layout, respectively.

In this release, the cross-probing between Constraint Manager and companion tools is
extended to include analysis results and pin-pairs. When a result or pin-pair is selected in
Constraint Manager and cross-probed to a design, the corresponding objects are highlighted.
These objects may include corresponding DRC markers and Clines or Rats. The object is
also ‘fitted’ and centered on your screen.

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January 2002

Product Notes for Release 14.1

These Product Notes include the following sections:
■ Total Etch Length
■ Relative Propagation Delay

Total Etch Length

Total Etch Length is a new electrical constraint that enables you to control the total length of
etch in a net. Within Constraint Manager, the Total Etch Length constraint has been added to
both the Electrical Constraint Set – Routing and Net – Routing workbooks as well as in
the Electrical Constraint Set – All Constraints workbook. Both the constraint value and
the actual value are displayed.

In Constraint Manager, the Nets – Routing workbook contains columns to allow Actual
values to be displayed without a matching constraint value. This allows for any easy check of
an entire design without requiring constraint values to be created. There are additional
columns to show the unrouted net length based on the Manhattan distance and a ratio of the
routed length to the unrouted length.

This constraint is stored as a string value. The format of the string is "<min>:<max>", where
both <min> and <max> are length values with optional units. If no units are specified, then
the units of the drawing will be assumed. Either value is optional. If only a max value is
specified, the leading colon is required. If only a min value is defined, the trailing colon is
optional. By default, this constraint is empty, that is, it contains neither a min nor a max value.
The constraint is visible and active in Allegro expert and designer, APD and
SPECCTRAQuest, and is fully supported by the SPECCTRA router and the Allegro
interactive etch editing commands.

The Total Etch Length constraint has an override property named TOTAL_ETCH_LENGTH that
can be stored on a net, Xnet, bus, or diff pair. The value of this property is a string of the same
format as described above for the constraint. Edits to the property at the net level will
propagate to the Xnet level.

Relative Propagation Delay

A new column named Length has been added to the Net – Routing – Relative
Propagation Delay worksheet. The intent of this column is to show which individual net
needs to be lengthened or shortened.

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January 2002

Product Notes for Release 14.0

Introducing Constraint Manager

Constraint Manager provides a unified, hierarchical view of electrical constraints contained in
Allegro layout and Concept schematic databases. It presents the constraints in a
worksheet interface that enables the user to capture, manage, and validate the different rules.
Constraint Manager enables designers to group all of the high-speed constraints for a
collection of signals to form an Electrical Constraint Set (ECSet) that is then associated with
those nets to manage their actual implementation. Once the constraints are present in the
database, they are used to drive the placement and routing processes for those signals.
Hierarchical constraint management means that the same constraints can be applied to a
collection of signals and overridden on a case-by-case basis where appropriate.

Constraint Manager is completely integrated with the Allegro design rules checking system;
this means that the different high-speed rules can be checked in real-time as the design
process proceeds, with the results presented as part of Constraint Manager’s worksheets.
Any design parameters that do not meet their associated constraint values are highlighted.
At any point during physical design users can launch Constraint Manager to view high-speed
constraint information associated with the design.

The worksheets present two views of the constraint information in the database: the electrical
constraint set and net views. The electrical constraint set view presents the different ECSets
present in the database and their associated constraint values. The net view presents the
different nets contained in the system, the names of the ECSets associated with those nets
(if any), and their associated constraint values. Any net-level override information of the
design rules contained in the ECSets, is displayed in a different color. Constraint Manager
also displays the results of design analysis alongside the constraint values in the worksheet
and color-codes the results to indicate success or failure.

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