Getting Started: Viewlogic

Welcome to the Viewlogic tutorial and setup page. This page will help you through the steps necessary to use the Viewlogic CAD tool suite as well as run the Viewlogic Digital Design tutorial. More specific information on Viewlogic, such as setting up libraries, will be provided on a separate page.

Create Viewlogic Directory

The first step in setting up Viewlogic is to create a unique directory to hold all of your viewlogic project and library information (this directory does not have to hold your design information). The directory can be called anything or placed anywhere.

mkdir ~/viewlog

Set Environment Variables

The next step requires adding and modifying the environment variables in your .cshrc file. The following settings will allow you to use the Viewlogic on any of the HP workstations in the department. If you need to use Viewlogic on the Sun (all Clay users need access to the Sun license and libraries), see below. For Viewlogic 6.0, the recommended modifications to your .cshrc are: 
setenv WDIR ~/viewlog:/tools/viewlogic/standard
setenv QUADHOME /tools/viewlogic/quad
setenv QUADBIN /tools/viewlogic/quad/exec
setenv XLM /cad/xilinx
if( $?LM_LICENSE_FILE ) then
	setenv LM_LICENSE_FILE ${LM_LICENSE_FILE}:/tools/viewlogic/standard/license.dat
else
	setenv LM_LICENSE_FILE /tools/viewlogic/standard/license.dat
endif
set path = (/tools/viewlogic /tools/viewlogic/quad/exec $path)
setenv VIPC_KILL_PRE_60_VNSD TRUE
If you are using the older Viewlogic 5.3, then use the following: 
set path=(/fpga3/cad/viewlogic /cad/xact/powerview/bin/hppa $path)
setenv WDIR {$HOME}/viewlog:/fpga3/cad/viewlogic/standard:/fpga3/cad/viewlogic/standard/53'
(Note that the Synopsys version of iview and the Viewlogic version conflict, so I would not recommend having both in your .cshrc by default. If you have both tools setup and you need to use Viewlogic's iview, make sure that the Viewlogic tools appear earlier in the path than the Synopsys tools.)

Additionally, the following are .ini files which can be used for preparing to use Viewlogic:

  1. powerview.ini
  2. workview.ini
  3. viewdraw.ini (Created for use with Xilinx 4000EX/XL FPGAs. Must be modified for other parts.)
These .ini files should be placed in your design's project directory. (If you are using Viewlogic 6.0, you can and probably should remove the LICENSE_SERVER lines from the powerview.ini and the workview.ini--the license management system has changed.)

In the environments given above, note that the variable WDIR must point to both your local viewlogic directory and the viewlogic source libraries. The WDIR environment variable defines the Powerview search order for configuration files. Powerview's search order first looks in the local directory for any files, then it searches along the WDIR path for the necessary files.

The WDIR variable identifies the Powerview search order for:

With the environment variables set appropriately, source your .cshrc file to activate the changes:

source ~/.cshrc Clay Users: In order to run the ClayTools, you must have access to the Viewlogic sources and libraries for the Sun workstations. Under the settings for the Sun environment in your .cshrc file, add the variable WDIR and the appropriate path: # Viewlogic environment variable for the Sun workstations setenv WDIR ~/viewlog:/sun_data/viewlogic53/standard # Viewlogic Path for the Sun workstations set path = ( $path /sun_data/viewlogic53 )

Start Powerview

With the environment variables added, start the Viewlogic Powerview cockpit with the following command: powerview &

The Powerview cockpit should appear to provide access to all of the Viewlogic CAD tools and on-line help. The Digital Design tutorial is available as part of the Viewlogic On-Line Help docutents. The ViewDoc help facility is available by accessing the red-square pull-down menu under the help -> ViewDoc sub-menu.

The ViewDoc index screen should appear to provide you with links to all of the Viewlogic on-line help. Under the Tutorials item, you will find the OATS Tutorial

Note: the complete Viewlogic 6.0 path is /tools/viewlogic. The ditial design tutorial is located at /tools/viewlogic/tutor/oats.

It will be very useful to read or browse the on-line manual called Schematic Design User's Guide. To access this manual, open ViewDoc and then select ViewDraw and then User Guides. Lastly, select Schematic Design User's Guide>. This manual will provide many of the details that the tutorial does not discuss.

The Viewlogic HTML home page can be accessed here.

Last modified: Wed Mar 4 10:15:55 MST 1998

Please send comments to:

grahamp@ee.byu.edu