MQA 2019 Release Notes

This document describes new features, functionality, fixed issues and known issues in MQA 2019. It also includes documentation changes and provides workarounds for defects wherever possible. For general information about MQA, visit Keysight EEsof product web-page at: http://www.keysight.com/find/eesof-products.

New Features

• New Post-process toolkit

  • A new Python library “PyMQA” is introduced to process MQA result directory and generate the customized plots and tables.

  • Allows to merge the results generated by different rules/projects.

  • No additional simulation is needed.

  • Easy to learn and use.

  • Auto generate script is available.
    
    

• New MDM data filter
• Enables to select and export MDM data files (generated by WaferPro or WaferPro Express) base on the query conditions .
• User could assign MDM data folder to process.
• Input simple filter script and run, MQA will save the result to destination folder.
• MQA could list all instance info containing in the MDM data files
  

Enhancements

• Supports loading the MDM data folder in measurement QA.
• Supports Aging model accuracy check.
• Supports display of two target versus target correlation plot using different models.

Defect fixed

• Fixed the issue of NP Correlation and Corner NP Correlation projects do not run in MQA 2017.
• Fixed the polar plot scaling issue in MQA
• Fixed the issue that MQA not loading measured data folder in Measured QA on Linux platform.
• Fixed the issue that MQA did not properly categorize measured data after loading.
• Fixed the issue that MQA shows wrong device type when S parameter data is loaded.
• Fixed the issue that MQA only parses the first line in [Measured Data] section in .noi noise data file.
• Fixed the issue that MQA can parse some model libraries in Hspice format but not with Spectre.

Known Issues

• If the output name ends with "result", "diff", "difference", "ratio" or "xxx.boundary", "xxx.judge", "xxx.pcs" , then the plots will not be displayed. 
  Workaround: Do not use output names that end with the mentioned names. For example, instead of vth_diff use diff_vth.

• On generating reports using the latest Office 2016, a warning message is displayed:
  
  Workaround: Click Yes and continue.

• MQA does not support batch reporting for post-processed results.

• The following MQA result or features are not supported with the module of Post Process in this version:
• Result of statistical simulation
• Result of parameter checking is not loaded
• Unit or style from original result
• Complex plots like N-P Correlation can not be created.
• Merging data with different geometry is not supported.

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. 

The following are MQA supported platforms:

OS and Version	Windows XP	Windows 7 Enterprise	Windows 7 Enterprise	Windows 8 Enterprise	Windows 8 Enterprise	Windows 10	RedHat Linux RHEL4	RedHat Linux RHEL5	RedHat Linux RHEL6	RedHat Linux RHEL7
32/64 bit	32/64	32	64	32	64	64	64	64	64	64
MQA 2011.2.0
MQA 2012.07
MQA 2013.01
MQA 2014.04
MQA 2016.01
MQA 2017
MQA 2019

Legend	Description
	Supported
	Unsupported

Licensing

• MQA 2019 requires: a) the version 2018.04 of the EEsof EDA licensing software, b) a minimum code-word version 2018.04 or above, 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 2018.04. MOSAIC 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 2018.04, licensing vendor daemon ( agileesofd ) is integrated with FlexNet FNP 11.13.1.4 version (Windows) and FlexNet FNP 11.13.1.3 version (Linux) of FlexNet license manager daemon ( lmgrd ). For the Windows platform, MOSAIC installer will automatically set up these two new license server daemons by default for the local node-locked license users; for the Linux platform, you need to follow the Linux/Solaris Licensing Setup instruction to complete the licensing configuration process. For more details, refer to Delete this and childs.
• 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.

Fixed issues

• The issue related to the vendor daemon agileesofd could sometimes crash while the License Manager and the Product Selector was running on a remote Windows 8 machine has now been fixed with the newer FlexNET publisher 2015 (also known as version 11.13.1) that is automatically installed by the MQA installer.

Known Issues

• License Setup wizard may not be able to start license server with many license files. During setup, it may lead to a situation where a command prompt window appears/disappears incessantly. This is due to the fact that License Setup wizard is not able to start lmgrd with a long command line and may get stuck in a loop.
  Workaround: 
  

  1. It is recommended to combine all license code words tied to same MAC ID into single license file to avoid setting large number of license files.
  2. Try to use a shorter path to place license files.
  3. If #1 and/or #2 does not help, start the license server (lmgrd.exe) from the command line (e.g. lmgrd.exe -c <lic-file-path> -l <license_server_log.txt>) and then set <PRODUCT>_LICENSE_FILE=<PORT-NUMBER>@localhost for product you want to use on same PC.

• Dongle drivers for Flex-10 dongles on Linux are release specific. Installing the latest dongle drivers on Linux will function properly only for the most recent EEsof releases.
  Workaround: Install and use dongle drivers as needed.  If you need to run the most recent EEsof releases, use the latest  Flex-10 dongle driver. If you need to use older releases, uninstall the latest dongle driver and re-install the older dongle driver

• FLO and EEsof License setup are writing server logs at different locations. However, the EEsof server log file location is updated in the License Manager > Environment tab.
• When multiple same-named INCREMENT lines of different version exist on the license server, few advanced FlexNet options to reserve/limit licenses may not work properly. 
• Product Selector “Check Availability“ generates incorrect results (which leads to license failure) for older releases when multiple date base versions of like-named bundles exist in the license pool.
• Starting from FlexNet Publisher 2015 (also known as version 11.13.1), the adoption of the best practice of the least-privilege security therein results in the License Server related Windows Service to run with the LocalService Account privilege (instead of the LocalSystem privilege as before.)  Running with the LocalService Account privilege, an executable can no longer access any files located in the per-user specific type of folders.  As a result, any license file placed in those folders can no longer be accessed by the License Server when the License Server is automatically started via the Windows Service upon each PC reboot. For the local node-locked license, this would not result in any disruption to the usage of EEsof applications; however, for the license installed on a network PC that is accessed by multiple client PCs, this may cause EEsof applications not to start after the network PC reboots
  Workaround: Store your license files in the Windows folders that are accessible by the LocalService Account privilege.  For example, C:\ProgramData or C:\users\public are both qualified choices.  In general, any folder that has the "Users" group listed in its Properties>Security page and this "Users" group has the read permission enabled should work. 
• Starting from FlexNet Publisher 2015 (aka version 11.13.1), the default licensing timeout is set to 3 seconds (from the previous 0.1 second) to better accommodate systems with high network latency. This could cause certain utilities in the License Manager to perform slower than before.
  Workaround: Set the FlexNet licensing timeout to 0.2 seconds, via setting the environment variable FLEXLM_TIMEOUT=200000, to minimize the performance degradation.  However, if the network latency is already an issue in your environment, you may need to fine-tune this setting to minimize the general performance degradation while still accommodating the network latency.
• Installation of EESof EDA tools (such as, SystemVue 2016.08, Genesys 2017.XX, or ADS 2017.XX) may hang at 4% (percentage vary based on the products) for few hours or even more on some specific machines.
  Workarounds:
  • Disable Firewall setting in Anti-Virus Software installed on the PC.
    or
  • Download and unzip process explorer from the below link and then invoke procexp.exe.
    https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processexplorer.aspx
    Right click on the wusa.exe process under <Product installer exe> and select KillProcess. Now it will continue the product installation.
• After installing EESof EDA tools (such as, SystemVue 2016.08, Genesys 2017.XX, or ADS 2017.XX) successfully and try to invoke the software or License wizard, you may encounter “api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll” missing error.
  
  Workaround: Install the Update for Universal C Runtime in Windows .  On Windows 64-bit system systems, the file to install is x64 version of the Microsoft hotfix KB2999226.  A copy of the Windows6.1-KB2999226-x64.msu Microsoft 64-bit hotfix installer can be found under the C:\Program Files\Keysight\EEsof_License_Tools\bin directory.  The Microsoft hotfix KB2999226 can be found under the Update for Universal C Runtime in Windows  page at  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2999226/update-for-universal-c-runtime-in-windows as well.
• On a newly formatted RHEL system, the EEsof Licensing tools may fail to boot. This is because the FlexNet Publisher 2015 requires a certain rpm
  Workaround: Under the EEsof product installation directory, there exists a utility script named "Linux_sys_check.sh" under the bin directory.  Run this script to find out whether any rpm is missing; run this script with a "-y" command-line option to also have all the missing rpms automatically installed if you have the sudo or root privilege.
• License server may stop recognizing Flex-10 dongle on some systems within a few hours after starting
  Workaround: If you experience this problem, install the latest WibuKey drivers from Wibu Systems.
• 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 FlexNet Publisher 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.
• If a user simultaneously runs two instances of a product and has mixed different versions of the same codeword on one license server, extra licenses may be pulled and result in unexpected “Licensed number of users already reached for this feature” errors.
  Workaround: We recommend you 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.
• 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 older than 2014.01 when run at the same time.
• License Setup Wizard does not remove any previous user-configured FLEX Windows License Service manually set up by a user 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.

    If you have installed an EEsof product released before 1st August, 2014 on your system prior to installing an EEsof product released after 1st August, 2014 then the default EEsof Licensing tools path will remain C:\Program Files\Agilent\EEsof_License_Tools. On the systems that only have EEsof products released after 1st August, 2014 installed then the default EEsof Licensing tools path will be C:\Program Files\Keysight\EEsof_License_Tools.

  • 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).
• For LSF style distributed simulations, ensure that the PATH on the client computer 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 Delete this and childs.
• 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.
• 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.

• EEsof Licensing Tools installer can hang on systems with McAfee LiveSafe installed and running the default firewall settings.

  Workaround:  Prior to installing EEsof Licensing Tools, temporarily turn off the McAfee LiveSafe firewall.

• Licensing setup steps on systems with McAfee LiveSafe installed can fail.

  Workaround:  Under the McAfee LiveSafe firewall settings, under Port and Settings, allow the use of port 27001 for lmgrd.exe under the EEsof Licensing Tools installation bin directory.  Under Internet Connections for Programs, enable lmgrd.exe, aglmmgr.exe and aglmwizard.exe for all devices and turn off monitoring.