Mentor Graphics Tools page

This page provides a set of resources for students taking my classes using the Mentor Graphics family of IC design tools.

We use three specific tool sets:  (1) Design Architect®, (2) IC Station®, and also (3) ModelSim®.  I don't discuss the ModelSim tools on this page but, rather, provide documentation for the Design Architect (DA) and IC Station (IC) design tools.  I also provide documentation for the ASIC Design Kit (ADK) library of devices that we use in developing IC level models for the construction of digital subsystems.  I post these manuals here because they are difficult to find in the current mcg_tree distribution we have set up (and file permissions may not allow you to open and read them in their base directory, which doesn't grant certain access privileges).

1. Design Architect: DA Users Guide (PDF), DA Reference Manual (PDF).  These are 2MB and 3.5MB size files, respectively.

2. Design Architect/IC Design: Users Guide (PDF), Reference Manual (PDF).  These are 3.75 and 4.25MB files, respectively.

3. IC Station: Users Guide (PDF), Reference Manual (PDF).  These are 4MB and 6.25MB files, respectively.

4. ADK Library: Users Guide (PDF).  This is a 1/2 MB sized file.

5. MOSIS web page:  AMI 0.5 Micron CMOS C5 Process Description, Process Layers, and Device & Materials Parameters.

                        http://www.mosis.org/products/fab/vendors/amis/c5/

                        http://www.mosis.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/umosis/swp/params/ami-c5/t3af-params.txt

                        http://www.mosis.org/Technical/Layermaps/lm-ami-c5n.html

Note: At this point, we don't have an agreement with AMI, so we don't have access to their 0.5 um process design rules as text descriptions.  However, the Mentor tutorial shows you how to load the AMU05 design rules in compiled format, remember?  If you want to read some comparable rules as ours, look at the MOSIS based vendor-independent scalable rules (for which we don't have a rules file in Mentor), by following this link.  There are tables showing the mapping from the vendor-indepndent to the AMI-specific rules (defining the lambda parameter):

                        http://www.mosis.org/Technical/Designrules/scmos/scmos-main.html

Other resources:

1. Zar, D. M., "Using the ASIC Design Kit for Schematic Driven Layout", Washington University, St. Louis, MO, 2000. (PDF)

2. Mason, A., and J. Davis, "Working in the Mentor Environment, Part 1 and Part 2", Draft, November 2005. (PDF).  This is a refactoring and revision of a course tools page from U. of Kentucky, posted 2001, by Prof. Andy Mason, which we have been allowed to modify and adapt for our configuration.

3. Mentor Graphics home page for their University Program: