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Some Notes on the Hierarchy Editor in Cadence...
by John Sheridan Fisher

For any existing testbench, the design hierarchy editor can be used. A Hierarchy Editor ('config') view must be created:

Library Manager: File -> New -> Cell View -> Create New File: Hierarchy Editor (for the existing testbench)

The Library and Cell must be entered if they were not automatically configured. The View is generally not automatically configured and must be entered (i.e. schematic, verilogams).

Next enter all of the libraries to be used in the design in the Library List box:

fisherj_test_ami06 analogLib basic ahdlLib

Now enter all of the views that must be considered for the design. This step is very important, as Cadence will ignore (and we mean ignore with warning) all views missed in this step. In addition, these views imply an order of precedence for the hierarchy's default behavior. Here are some common views:

spectre eldo ADVance_MSS ADVance_MS hspiceS cdsSpice spectreS eldoD schematic verilogams veriloga verilog adms_vhdlams adms_vlogams ahdl hdlaArchitecture hdlaEntity netlist entity verilogAe symbol

Then enter all of the views that should stop hierarchical expansion. Generally, these would be simulation views. Primitive cells in any HDL seem to stop themselves. Here are some common views:

spectre eldo ADVance_MSS ADVance_MS hspiceS cdsSpice spectreS eldoD

These entries can now be applied to the Hierarchy editor and should cause it to update and explode the entire design hierarchy. The hierarchy can be viewed either in table format or in tree format. Right-clicking on the instance will raise a window to select which individual view should be used for that cell instance, overriding the default, ordered view list.

Once the hierarchy config is updated and saved, opening the config from the Library Manager will spawn a window. This window will give a choice of opening either or both the schematic or the hierarchy config editor, but both will be opened under the auspices of the config view. Meaning that when Analog Artist is spawned, the view to be simulated (noted in the NW block of the window) will be the config view. If Analog Artist is opened from a schematic view opened as itself, then the view to be simulated can be changed to config but selecting Edit->Design and changing the view to config. [Load states after selecting the view to simulate.] In addition, under the auspices of the hierarchy config, the schematic window will automatically have loaded the Mixed Signal options menu and such. So once, a config view has been created, we recommend using it instead of the schematic view of the testbench.