MQA 2014.04 Release Notes

The MQA 2014.04 contains BSIM-CMG QA rule set, Order and template function for reporting, Sub-circuit model parameter check, large signal QA solution, and all defect fixes from the previous MQA2013.01 hotfix.

For general information about MBP, visit Keysight EEsof product web-page at:
http://www.keysight.com/find/eesof-products

Licensing

• SHORT_PRODUCT_NAME requires: a) version 2014.01 of the EEsof EDA licensing software, b) version 3.1 codewords to run, and c) the licensing server software, lmgrd and agileesofd, to be upgraded to at least the same versions as what are included in EEsof EDA Licensing software 2014.01. SHORT_PRODUCT_NAME will not start if any of these requirements is not met. Refer to the License Codeword Version Compatibility Table.
• In the EEsof EDA License Tools version 2014.01, licensing vendor daemon ( agileesofd ) is upgraded to sync up with FlexNet FNP 11.11.1.2 version of FLEX license manager ( lmgrd ). SHORT_PRODUCT_NAME installer for the Windows platform will automatically set up these two new license server daemons by default for the local node-locked license users; for Linux, you need to follow the Linux/Solaris Licensing Setup instruction to complete the licensing configuration process. For more details, refer to  Licensing (For Administrators).
• A real-time and systematic license setup troubleshooting utility, Diagnose, is added to the License Manager tool. This utility produces a detailed health report of a user's currently configured licensing environment.
• A My Support ID utility is added to the License manager tool to allow a user to retrieve his/her Support ID required to contact Keysight EEsof Tech Support.

Enhancements and Improvements

• For simplified and robust licensing, PJC (Per Job Control) licenses are no longer checked out by SHORT_PRODUCT_NAME .
• The License Setup Wizard no longer requires Administrator privilege on Windows to setup license files. Administrator privilege is only required to setup the windows service that will automatically start the license server upon system restart rather than on EEsof application startup.

Operating System Support

As previously announced, the Solaris (SUN OS) platform support has been discontinued and MQA 2013.01 is only supported on the LINUX Red Hat and Windows® operating systems.

Supported Windows and Linux platform

OS and Version	Windows XP	Windows 7 Enterprise	Windows 8 Enterprise	RedHat Linux RHEL4	RedHat Linux RHEL5	RedHat Linux RHEL6	Solaris 10 license Server
32/64 bit	32/64	32/64	32/64	64	64	64	64
MQA 2011.2.0
MQA 2012.07
MQA 2013.01
MQA 2014.04

 

Legend	Description
	Supported
	Unsupported

New Features

• BSIM-CMG QA rules
• Order and Template function implementation
• Sub-circuit model parameter check
• Large Signal RF QA solution

Enhancements

• Support various X-axis variable definition for Mismatch plot
• Support IF/ELSE in ADS model equation
• Support selecting/deselecting P-axis on GUI
• Support .variation and .global_variation options in HSPICE
• Accuracy check result table can highlight mismatches with user defined criteria
• S-parameter comparison rule
• Add option for Log calculation method
• Support Perl version 5.8 or later

Fixed Issues

The MQA2014.04 release addresses the following issues:

• Call ADS fails in Linux version
• ET plot has missing points
• PDF report link is broken
• RMS summary table can’t be reported
• MIM CAP model can’t create compare project
• Variation table created by PCS has missing L value
• Project creation failed with ELDO when creating project not in model path
  Licensing

• On windows, a possible Administrator privilege issue preventing the automatic restarting of the FlexFNP license server program, lmgrd after the PC comes out of the hibernation mode has been fixed. The License Setup Wizard will automatically restart the server without any user intervention.

Known Issues - Licensing

• The new license server software packaged in the EEsof EDA License Tools version 2014.01 does not work on SuSE 10 platform. Use SuSE 11 or RHEL 5 or 6 instead as your Linux license server machine.
• Unable to install Flex-10 driver if Flex-9 dongle is already plugged into a machine.
  Workaround: Before installing a Flex-10 driver for the first time, unplug the Flex-9 dongle.
• There is a known Flexera FNP issue, whereby mixing node-locked codewords and floating codewords in one license file can result in: a) Remote simulations not working or b) A second local simulation not working in case the license is node-locked and also has incorrect version.
  Workaround: It is strongly recommended that you do not mix node-locked codewords and floating codewords in one license file nor in any configuration that ends up with node-locked codewords and floating codewords both available on the same server. In other words, put the node-locked license and the floating license on different servers, and point to the respective one based on what you need to run.
  Additionally, we also recommend you to remove expired codewords, to separate out the new and the old versions of codewords into different files and different servers, and to point to the respective one based on what you need to run.
• On the Linux platform, PRODUCT_NAME_LICENSE_FILE needs to be correctly specified before starting SHORT_PRODUCT_NAME. Without that being set correctly, SHORT_PRODUCT_NAME would not start.
• Not specifying the TCP/IP port for the license server during license setup may lead to unexpected behavior and/or license checkout failure on the Windows platform. We strongly recommend you to always explicitly specify the TCP/IP port associated with each license server.
• A node-locked and floating bundle operating on Linux cannot be shared between products using EDA License Tools version 2014.01 and 11.9.0.0 or earlier when run at the same time.
• The "Check-in failed" message occurs in the license activity log occasionally can be ignored; the license mentioned in this message is actually properly returned.
• License Setup Wizard does not remove any previous user-configured FLEX Windows License Service installed using FlexNet's lmtools.
  Workaround: You must remove the previous user-configured Windows License Service via lmtools.
  • Run the lmtools.exe from C:\Program Files\Agilent\EEsof_License_Tools\bin to invoke the lmtools utility. The lmtools utility window is displayed.
  • In the Service/License File tab, check the Configuration using Services option. All user-configured FLEX Windows License Services will be listed.
  • Select the service you wish to remove.
  • Select the Config Services tab and click the Remove Service button to remove the service.
    To ensure that the license service or lmgrd is running, click View Log. A log window appears that confirms whether agileesofd and lmgrd are up and running.
• While running multiple versions of prior SHORT_PRODUCT_NAME releases together, set PRODUCT_NAME_MAXIMUM_BUNDLE_USAGE=ON in your environment so that all of them will use the same method to check out licenses. Otherwise, you might receive an error message, "Licensed number of users already reached".
• On some Windows 7 machines, when more than one definition of an Ethernet adapter exists (duplicates), license checkouts may appear to hang up.
  Workaround: Disable the duplicate network card definitions in your network settings: Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network Connections. This issue has been acknowledged by Flexera and they have created a bug report (SIOC-000103097).
• If a license server is configured with two license versions, that is, version 2.8 and 2.9 node-locked license files, the license server may crash.
  Workaround: You should combine the two license files into one file, instead of using them separately.
• For LSF style distributed simulations, in case of windows, ensure that the PATH points to the $HPEESOF_DIR/EEsof_License_Tools/${architecture} directory that corresponds to the EEsof release being used. This needs to be done in order to ensure that the proper version of the Flexera utilities (like lmutil ) gets picked up in the path before any older in-compatible versions (that may also be installed on a users’ system.)
• License Setup Wizard ( aglmwizard.exe ), which is used to set up and record the license path would not work if you already have an environment variable set for PRODUCT_NAME_LICENSE_FILE.
  Workaround: You can use PRODUCT_NAME_LICENSE_FILE variable to point to license file or refer to Licensing (For Administrators).
• The License Setup Wizard will exit or not properly configure a license server, if the server has all of its licenses currently in use.
  Workaround: Wait for a license on the server to become available as you normally would before launching the product.
• If SHORT_PRODUCT_NAME does not start after you reboot your 64-bit Windows computer, and a license denial message is displayed, then it might be caused by a spurious registry entry. Check to see if registry entry HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\FLEXlm License Manager\EEsof EDA License Server exists; if it does, remove it and restart SHORT_PRODUCT_NAME.
• Unable to set license in case unicode characters are used either in path or license file name because the Flex License Service does not support these characters.
• The Product Selector tool will be unable to display the license server status properly when connected to older license server.
  Workaround: Upgrade your license server to the latest version.