Cliosoft SOS User Guide Version 7.00 and later September, 2020 Revision H SOS User Guide Legal Notices Copyright © 2014 - 2020 Cliosoft, Inc. All rights reserved. Published in the USA. The information in this publication is provided as is. Cliosoft makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. The use, copying, or distribution of any Cliosoft or third-party software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. Cliosoft and the Cliosoft logo are trademarks of Cliosoft Inc. All other trademarks used in this document are the property of their respective owners. North American Headquarters Cliosoft, Inc. 39500 Stevenson Place, Suite 110 Fremont, CA 94539 USA Tel: (U. S.) +1 510-790-4732 E-mail: [email protected] Support: [email protected] Overview of the SOS Software 2 SOS User Guide 1 Chap OVERVIEW OF THE SOS SOFTWARE This chapter gives an overview of the Cliosoft SOS hardware configuration management software. About This Manual This manual explains how to use the SOS software to manage EDA design files and related files, such as documentation files and EDA tool configuration files. This manual is for both designers and project administrators. Project administrators should also read the SOS Administration Guide. This manual shows how to work directly with the SOS user interface. You can also use SOS through its interfaces with popular EDA design tools, such as Cadence® Virtuoso®. Many designers, especially schematic and layout designers, usually work with the SOS this way. For information about using SOS with your design tools, see these documents: • Getting Started with SOS for Virtuoso® Designers • Getting Started with SOS for ADS Designers • Getting Started with SOS in Synopsys Custom Compiler Overview of the SOS Software 3 SOS User Guide Understanding Hardware Configuration Management EDA Design Methodology without Design Management When the design environment does not include design management software, each user has scratch libraries for development. All users share the same master libraries of finished cells. FiguMethodology and Libraries without Design Management Designers create or edit cells in their personal scratch libraries, and then verify changes by using their scratch libraries and the shared master libraries. Designers copy finished cells hierarchically from their scratch libraries to the master library. Working without design management, it is very easy for a designer to accidentally overwrite another designer’s work with changes from their personal “scratch” libraries. It is also difficult to be sure that you are working with the correct version of every cellview and file, especially when you need to run simulation or verification from a high level of the design hierarchy. Design Methodology with Hardware Configuration Management Hardware configuration management helps design teams avoid these problems by automating and simplifying how you manage all of the libraries and files that make up a design. The key features of hardware configuration management are: • Design Management: each designer works in an isolated work area that contains a copy of the project libraries. The SOS software prevents accidental or simultaneous changes to project libraries. • Version Control: every time you check in a file, you create a new revision of that file in the project repository. You can revert back to older revisions at any time. You can also easily recreate any previous release of your entire project. Each revision gets an ID number starting from 1 and incremented for each new revision. Overview of the SOS Software 4 SOS User Guide • Change Tracking: SOS automatically maintains a change history for every file. Virtuoso users can run Visual Design Diff to see the change history for any cellview graphically in the schematic or layout editor window, with each change highlighted. • Access Control: CAD managers determine who can make changes to “golden” versions of files, or to specific libraries and. For example, layout engineers might not be allowed to modify schematics. • Release Management: you can save snapshots of a design that record the version of every file in every library. You can recreate these snapshots – a “golden” version, a tapeout, or a successful design experiment – at any time in the future. Managing Files and Libraries in SOS Projects All of the files and libraries associated with a design are stored in a central SOS project repository. The project repository is a database that is specialized for handling circuit and semiconductor design data. As a designer, you work with copies of the libraries in your own “sandbox” or work area. The work area contains project libraries and files that are shared between everyone working on a project. This means that you do not need to create your own editable “scratch” copies of the project libraries. FiguProject Repositories and Work Areas Most large design teams are spread out across multiple sites, often in more than one country. For multi-site installations, there is usually a primary SOS Overview of the SOS Software 5 SOS User Guide server at the main development site and an SOS cache server at every site. This arrangement gives every user access to all of the project’s files, as though they worked at the same facility. For the design team shown in the figure, when Sally checks in a new file to the project, the new file gets copied to the SOS cache server and the designers in Shanghai can begin using the new file immediately. For more information about the SOS client and server software architecture, see About SOS Servers, Clients, Projects, and Work Areas in the SOS Administration Guide. Typical Daily Work Task Flow Designers typically work with the SOS software by following these steps: 1 Check out a file from a library, working from the SOS user interface or from within your design tool environment. SOS creates a writable copy of the file in your work area directory, and places a lock on the file in SOS. The lock prevents other users at both local and remote sites from checking out the file and accidentally making simultaneous changes. 2 Edit the file and save the changes to disk. 3 Verify the changes with simulations. 4 When you are satisfied with the changes, check in the verified file from your work area to the repository. This creates a new version of the file. Now other designers can use the view. 5 Update your work area to collect changes from other designers. Designers might repeat these steps once each day, or several times each day, depending on the scope of the changes in each iteration. About the SOS Software The SOS software applies revision control to cellviews and other design data files, so that your entire design team can: • Stay informed about changes made by other designers on your team wherever they are located. • Always work with the correct libraries and correct file versions. The SOS software consists of: • The SOS application, for advanced design data management • The SOSAdmin application for managing projects and servers Overview of the SOS Software 6 SOS User Guide • The SOS integration with your design tools, which lets you perform most daily design management tasks using SOS commands added to the normal tool menus • The SOS Visual Design Diff utility, for comparing versions of cellviews Both the SOS and the SOSAdmin applications have graphical user interfaces for day-to-day work and command-line interfaces for scripting. The next few pages give a quick overview of each of the SOS software tools. The SOS Graphical User Interface The tool for day-to-day operations on files is the SOS graphical user interface, shown in the next figure. To start the SOS graphical user interface, cd to your work area directory and enter the command sos. For help, choose Help > Documentation. See Starting SOS for information about startup options. FiguSOS Graphical User Interface The SOS window shows the status of the files in your project. Using the commands in the menus, you can check files into and out of the project, select which versions of the files to use in your work area, and perform other design Overview of the SOS Software 7 SOS User Guide management tasks. The right-click shortcut menu in the Hierarchy tree gives you quick access to commonly-used commands. Shift-click the + icons in the Hierarchy tree to expand the tree down the lowest level. Shift-click the - icons to collapse the tree up to the current folder. NoteYou can also perform many of these tasks from the user interface of your design tools. For RTL designers and for anyone who is managing text-based or documentation files, using the SOS window is often more convenient than working from the design tool user interface. Schematic design and layout engineers typically do most of their work from the design tool environment, using the SOS customizations for their design tools. Hovering the mouse over a folder shows detailed information about its contents down through the folder hierarchy. Overview of the SOS Software 8 SOS User Guide The SOS Command Line Interface You can use the SOS command line interface to run SOS in a terminal window, or from scripts. The syntax is soscmd command [arguments] For a list of commands, type soscmd help. For detailed help about a particular command, type soscmd help command. For examples, see Using the Command Line Interface. The SOSAdmin Graphical User Interface The SOSAdmin graphical user interface is the tool for managing projects and servers. All users can run this tool, but some commands are restricted to project administrators. To start the SOSAdmin tool, use the command sosadmin from any directory.