We have recently upgraded our verilog to the turbo version. With that, we
got cwaves which we find very useful in being able to graphically put
together the list of signals that we want to look at. Our approach, with
multiple designers, is to run verilog and then look at the results with
cwaves. Another simulation can be running while you are staring at the
waveforms. With multiple users, we would like to have one copy of
verilog and multiple copies of cwaves which I assume would be cheaper
than one copy of verilog for each user. My Cadence salesman tells me that
Cadence does not sell cwaves separately. They have had requests to do that
and his claim is that it will take them a year to do that. Does anyone know
why? maybe there's someone from cadence out there that can explain it. I
need a solution now. I might as well go to signalscan and buy their
software. It requires use dump files that occupy more disk space than using
cwaves but at least I can use it now. I feel that Cadence is encouraging me
to go to the competition. Am I the only one that gets that feeling?

I'd love to hear from anyone who has had that same problem or better still
from cadence.

Thanks

fazil osman
xlnt designs, inc.

I'm in the same situation right now.  We have an internal tool to translate
VCD files into Viewlogic's Viewtrace tool.  It works, but we want something
better, especially something with a source-level de{*filter*}.

We were about to go out and evlauate the standalone waveform tools: UnderTow,
SignalScan and Magellan, but then we figured we should wait and see what
CWAVES can do for us since we already bought the Turbo package.

My guess is that Cadence is offering the CWAVES package to induce customers
to buy the whole Turbo package.  It's too bad they don't offer the simulation
acceleration algorithm and the grpahical front end as seperate packages.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Integrated Device Technology
3001 Stender Way
Santa Clara, CA. 95051

|> We have recently upgraded our verilog to the turbo version. With that, we
|> got cwaves which we find very useful in being able to graphically put
|> together the list of signals that we want to look at. Our approach, with
|> multiple designers, is to run verilog and then look at the results with
|> cwaves. Another simulation can be running while you are staring at the
|> waveforms. With multiple users, we would like to have one copy of
|> verilog and multiple copies of cwaves which I assume would be cheaper
|> than one copy of verilog for each user. My Cadence salesman tells me that
|> Cadence does not sell cwaves separately. They have had requests to do that
|> and his claim is that it will take them a year to do that. Does anyone know
|> why? maybe there's someone from cadence out there that can explain it. I
|> need a solution now. I might as well go to signalscan and buy their
|> software. It requires use dump files that occupy more disk space than using
|> cwaves but at least I can use it now. I feel that Cadence is encouraging me
|> to go to the competition. Am I the only one that gets that feeling?
You can bring up cwaves standalone and by itself, by just typing cwave. It
invokes a special cwaves only opus when you do this. I believe it is because
of this opus framework dependency that the problem you are discribing exists
and is taking so long to remedy. In the mean time I would buy a venders
debug environment. They are really cheap and really trick. At ovi last week
alot of companies where demoing new verilog UI's that were cool. Here are
the list in order of which I like (based on slick demo's only, not on
actual evaluation as of yet). I was looking for good source level debugging
and good waveform display

Simulation Technologies  - Virsim   612 631 1858
Veritools - Undertow                415 941 5050
System Science INc  - Magellan      415 812 1800

Maybe I'll write up a little report for the net when I am done evaluating
each. My guess is that any of these would more than please most verilog
users debug needs.

I would like to see you post your report. Your experiences would be
interesting.

As you run your evaluations, you might want to produce a very large
dumpfile (50MB, 100MB or larger). There may be some significant
dumpfile loading speed differences for large dumpfiles.

Also, if you see a feature that you like with one of the tools,
ask the other vendors if they have the same (or very similar
capabilities). At the OVI conference, one of the above vendors
was doing a great demo of a source level debugging capability. I
asked another vendor why that capability was missing was from
their tool, and was informed that it did exist. The vendor did not
know that that feature was such an important selling point.

At $2K-$3K per license, the above products offer a real cost
savings over $25K-$35K Verilog licenses for evaluating a post
simulation run. Plus simulations run faster if they do not have to
interactively update a graphics screen.

Let us comp.lang.verilog-types know how your evaluations turn out.

- Cliff Cummings

After Friday, 3/25/94
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