The Verdi system supports searching signals by Regular Expression. This capability provides a flexible way for users to find signals of interest quickly. The following steps provide an example for how to use this capability.

1.     In nWave (with a loaded FSDB file), invoke the command Signal -> Get Signals to open the Get Signals form.

2.     In the Get Signals form, click the Options button to open the Options setting form, turn on the Search Signals with Regular Expression option and then press Close.

3.     In this example we would like to find a signal whose name starts from letter a to letter d, let's input ^[a-d] in the Find Signal field then press Enter.

4.     As you can see in the following figure, signals whose names start from a to d will be listed. Changing the scope in the left pane will list signals with the same Regular Expression in other scopes.

The Verdi system provides the Add Full Bus command in nWave to automatically add the entire bus when a bit signal is selected. The following steps and figure demonstrates the usage of this command:

1.     Assuming there is a one bit signal data[2] in nWave, and it belongs to the 8-bit bus data[7:0].

2.     Select this one bit signal in nWave, click the right-mouse-button and invoke the command Bus Operations -> Add Full Bus.  Note the command will not appear unless you have selected a bus member.

3.     The entire 8-bit bus data[7:0] (which the selected signal belongs to) will be automatically added under the selected signal.

A Unified FSDB Dumper for Cadence IUS, Synopsys VCS and Mentor Graphics ModelSim Simulators

A new breed of FSDB dumper is provided since Novas 2009.10. Different from previous FSDB dumpers, the new dumper is unified to support a broader range of simulators and versions. Currently, the new dumper can support Cadence IUS 6.2, Synopsys VCS 2006.06, Mentor Graphics ModelSim 6.4b and their later versions.

The new unified dumper is scheduled to replace the old dumpers in the year 2010. However, the old dumpers are still available for a considerable amount of time. For detailed usage on the new dumper, refer to the Linking Novas Files with Simulators and Enabling FSDB Dumping document (<NOVAS_INST_DIR>/doc/linking_dumping.pdf). And, for detailed usage on the old dumper, refer to the Linking Novas Files with Simulators and Enabling FSDB Dumping document (<NOVAS_INST_DIR>/doc/linking_dumping_pre-2010.01.pdf).

Here is a short example showing how to load the unified Novas FSDB dumper using the Synopsys VCS simulator:

l   Set shared library search path.

> setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH \

${NOVAS_INST_DIR}/share/PLI/lib/${PLATFORM}: \

...

l   Compile the design and run the simulation command.

> vcs -line -debug_all -P ${NOVAS_INST_DIR}/share/PLI/VCS/${PLATFORM}/novas.tab ${NOVAS_INST_DIR}/share/PLI/VCS/${PLATFORM}/pli.a

> simv

Note that some of the FSDB dumping commands will also become obsolete in the new unified FSDB dumper.  The details about what is changing for the dump commands can be found in the "A Unified FSDB Dumper" application note (KB#8192-18) located in the knowledge base of the SpringSoft support website.

On occasions where the default black background is too dark, it is possible to change to a white background color.  To do this, follow these steps:

1. Find your Laker install directory. For example: /tools/laker.

2. Under the subdirectory: etc/, find the file: leoDsgWnd.fm.

3. Modify the content of file: /tools/laker/etc/leoDsgWnd.fm

    Find the definition as follows and change the line highlighted in red:

PanedWindow WORKINGWINDOW {

        orientation = vertical;

        Form WORKINGPANEWND {

           DrawingAreaContainer ALLDRAWINGAREA {

              attachLeft = "Form 0";

              attachTop = "Form 0";

              attachRight = "Form 0";

              attachBottom = "Form 0";

              Frame CONTEXTWND {

                  manage = FALSE;

                  DrawingArea DRAWINGAREAWND1 {

                       background = black;

                       width = 100;

                       height = 100;

                       scrollbar = float;

                       traverse = false;

                    }

               }

              DrawingArea SCHDRAWINGAREAWND_F {

                      manage = FALSE;

                      traverse = false;

                      background = black;

                      width = 535;

                      height = 180;

                      attachRight = "Form 0";

                      attachBottom = "Form 0";

                      scrollbar = both;

                }

               DrawingArea DRAWINGAREAWND {

                      background = white;    <-- Change the color here from black to white.

                      width = 640;

                      height = 640;

                      attachLeft = "Form 0";

                      attachTop = "Form 0";

                      attachRight = "Form 0";

                      attachBottom = "Form 0";

                      scrollbar = float;

After changing the background color, you may also need to change the color for other features e.g. the select object color is white by default.

NOTE: When you upgrade the Laker version, the modified leoDsgWnd.fm file cannot be reused. You will need to make the modifications again in the latest Laker installation.

In the Verdi^TM Automated Debug System, the Property Tools window can manage, visualize, and debug assertions and their results. In addition to visualizing assertion results dumped by simulators, the Verdi system provides a unique Assertion Evaluation Engine which can check assertions against a signal level FSDB trace file for the design.

Starting from the Verdi 2009.10 version, this debugging methodology has been enhanced. The Verdi system provides the On-Demand Property/Sequence Evaluation capability - users can dump assertion signals only (without dumping the associated data such as properties, sequences, and local variables of the assertions) to an FSDB file, then the Verdi system evaluates the associated data on-demand so the users will have smaller assertion dumping results but still keep full debugging capability.

Below is a typical scenario which demonstrates how to use the re-designed Property Tools window to browse assertion results and debug assertion failures:

1. First, load the FSDB file which contains assertions into the Verdi system, and invoke the Tools > Property Tools command to open the Property Tools window, which can manage assertions, visualize results, and debug assertions.

2. You can add assertions/properties to the Property Tools window by dragging and dropping scope nodes from the nTrace window or an assertion/property from the nTrace/nWave windows. Or you can click the Get Properties  icon in the Property Tools window to invoke the Get Properties form to select the properties to add to the window. Or you can drag and drop a selected assertion/property from the Property Statistics tab or the Property Details section on the right pane to add the assertion/property to the Tree/Table tabs of the left pane.

3. To delete the properties shown in the Tree/Table Tabs, simply select the nodes/rows to delete and click Delete key on the keyboard.

4. The Property Detail section is for browsing the failures, successes and incomplete data details of the selected assertions/properties. There are a couple of ways to add assertions to the Property Detail section. You can double-click on an assertion on the Tree/Table tab or with one assertion selected on Tree/Table tab, select the Add to Details command on the right mouse button menu.

5. Also, you can double-click on a grid cell on the FSDB Statistic tab to add the related assertions/properties to the Property Details section.

6. After browsing the success, failure and incomplete records for an assertion/property in the Property Details section, you can then identify a record, usually a failure record, to analyze and debug further.

To analyze the assertion failure data, click the Analyze Property icon  or select the Analyze Property command on the right mouse button menu. Then the analyzed results for the assertion data are shown in the Analyzer tab with the time, signal and expression value annotated. You can see easily which expression is contributing to the failure.

7. You can also make use of the nWave window to display the analyzed results of the assertion data. The analyzed data can be automatically shown in the nWave window if you turn on the Add Evaluated Signals to nWave Automatically and Add Signals with Assertion Expression Grouping options on the Analyzer tab in the Assertion Options form. The form can be invoked from View > Options menu in the Property Tools window.