PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP) 2020 Update 1.0 Release Notes

PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP) is the industry standard platform for DC and High Frequency measurement and modeling of semiconductor devices. For general information about PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP), refer to the Keysight EEsof product page.

This document describes new features, functionality, fixed issues and known issues in PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP) 2020. It also includes documentation changes and provides workarounds for defects wherever possible.

For more information on known issues in PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP) 2020 Update 1.0, or to report a new issue, refer to the Keysight EEsof Knowledge Center.

To download  PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP) 2020 Update 1.0, visit the Keysight EEsof Knowledge Center website.

• To install PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP) 2020 Update 1.0 in minimal steps, refer to IC-CAP Quick Install and License Setup.
• To install licenses for PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP) 2020 Update 1.0 through IC-CAP 2020 Update 1.0 License Tools, refer to IC-CAP Licensing.

What's New

Enhancements

• New GaN RF CMC Modeling Toolkits and extraction examples. For more details, refer GaN RF CMC Modeling.

• Support for 2-Port Simulation With DC Outputs for ELDO (16.2 and newer) simulation.
• Modified default behavior when opening simulation debugger when REUSE_LAST_SIMULATION_RESULTS is set to true. Old behavior would keep reusing last results making it difficult to debug netlists without setting the variable to false first. New behavior ignores the setting whenever the debugger is open.
  • Since simulations and automatically triggered PEL can change parameter values, it can be useful to check if REUSE_LAST_SIMULATION_RESULTS is having the expected performance improvements. The old mode would print that results were being reused to the simulation debugger. A new variable named REUSE_LAST_SIM_CHECK_BEHAVIOR can be set to true which returns the old default behavior allowing you to check the simulation debugger for confirmation if simulations are being done or not when REUSE_LAST_SIMULATION_RESULTS is set.
    
• Update of BSIMCMG-RF to Model Package and replacement of BSIM6-RF with BSIMBULK-RF Model Package. Model Package version 2.3 updates include:
  • UI Updates
  • Bug fixes and increase of stability
  • Introduction of ADS circuit models
  • Update of HSPICE circuit models
  • Update of Model Package Documentation
    • BSIMBULK RF Characterization
    • BSIMCMG RF Characterization
  • Introduction of new features like
    • Load complete folder with .mdm files
    • Customization of Instance Parameters added
    • Added user warnings for .mdm file loading
    • Optimizer added
    • Autosave of tuning and optimization model parameter results. Option to select the number of files saved as part of the extraction history.
    • Feature to manually Save and Load model parameters from .mps or .dps files.
• The BYPASS_INPUT_RESOL_CHECK system variable now works for the modules of B1500 and B1505.
• New WaferPro Test Plan Run Options 'Return Wafers At End' was added for enabling the return of wafer(s) at the end of a Test Plan.
• New WaferPro driver for Micromanipulator NetProber 7 to support P200L and P300A probers with P300L controller

Issues Fixed

• Fixed an issue with the PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP) PEL/Python function lookup_obj_attribute(). The function lookup_obj_attribute() would not return the correct Plot attribute values for plots that have yet to be displayed. The function would return default uninitialized values when called with plots that have not been displayed, but if the plot was previously displayed then the function would return the correct Plot attribute values, such as "XAxisDisplayValue", or "XAxisExtent", and so on. Now, the function returns the correct Plot attribute values when called for a plot that has not been previously displayed.

• Fixed issue in reading saved .pop files with values for Weight, Curve Min, or Curve Max. These three values will now properly read into the plot optimizer.

• Fixed floating point error in displaying scatter plots.
• PEMG: Fixed the issue of some models' tune/optimize that were not working with ADS 2019/ADS 2020.
• Angelov-GaN model: Fixed the issue of tune/optimize that were not working with ADS 2019/ADS 2020.
• B1500A: Timeout duration of several commands in the driver increased to avoid command failure when setups containing current-driven-mode Inputs, which normally take more time to settle than voltage-driven ones. Besides, a new system variable 'IOPORT_DELAY_FOR_TIMEOUTS' is introduced to add extra timeout time.

• E4991A driver is updated not to enable/disable instrument's calibration/compensation state when BYPASS_CV_CAL is set to Yes consistently with E4990A and 4294A. Besides, a new system variable 'CHECK_CAL_OFF_BEFORE_MEAS_FREQ_UPDATE' is introduced for the three instruments to allow suppressing the update of the instrument's frequency to avoid calibration/compensation off in some conditions.

• Fixed GPIB connection failure issue with PNA-B version (5227B).

• Changed the IC-CAP PNA and PNA-X instrument Use PNA Low Frequency Extension [Yes/No] option default value from Yes to No, which is the default in the instrument firmware.

  This requires an extra step in PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP) to use the LFE (Low Frequency Extension) option with a compatible PNA/PNA-X instrument during measurement. One now has to change the PNA or PNA-X instrument option from its default setting of No to Yes before calibration or measurement of the IC-CAP setup is performed.

Installation

• On Linux platforms: If using National Instrument IO Libraries or TAMS IO Libraries that support VISA interface and instrument connections, these are the default locations that IC-CAP will search on startup for the appropriate libvisa.so shared VISA IO shared library file with executable permission.

  • The Linux IC-CAP startup script will look for a VISA Shared IO library file named libvisa.so on the Linux system in the following methods in order:
    • If the optional environment variable VISA_IO_LIBRARY_PATH is set in the current user's environment to have the full file path location to the libvisa.so file, IC-CAP will try to use that libvisa.so specified file path and no other.
    • If the VISA_IO_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable is not set, then IC-CAP will search for a libvisa.so shared library file with executable permissions at the following location:
      • On Linux 64-bit OS: /usr/local/lib64/libvisa.so
    • • On Linux 32-bit OS: /usr/local/lib/libvisa.so
    • If the VISA IO shared library was not found in the previous location, then IC-CAP will try to use a libvisa.so shared library file with executable permissions from the following default search location:
      • On Linux 64-bit OS: /usr/lib64/libvisa.so
      • On Linux 32-bit OS: /usr/lib/libvisa.so

Licensing

Documentation

Starting with the 2020 release, the online help gets a new user interface. The new UI improves overall online help usability by providing the following key benefits in addition to several other minor benefits:

• Table of Contents Sidebar: Displays collapsible Table of Contents for the entire documentation. The left-double-arrow icon collapses the sidebar, and the right-double-arrow icon displays the sidebar back again.
• PDF Button: Allows you to instantly generate PDFs of the latest documentation anytime, including current page’s children pages. Currently, the PDF generation option is available only for 2020 release. For other releases, you can switch to their Printing Manuals page and download the existing PDFs like earlier.
• Product Release Switcher: Allows you to view the current page in other supported releases listed in the drop-down menu. Once you select a release from the drop-down menu, the current page is updated to show the content applicable to the selected release. The Table of Contents is updated as well. With this, you bookmark URL of only one release and then switch to other releases from this drop-down menu.
• Latest Documentation: The documentation available in the new UI is always kept updated for all supported releases. These updates are available to you as soon as they happen at our end. This provides you 24x7 access to the most recent and technically accurate documentation.

For more details, see How to Use Online Help.

Known Issues

Problem	Solution
It takes longer time for IC-CAP to launch.	Here is the list of possible causes and workarounds: Network condition to the license server(s) can affect the launch time. If a LAN-GPIB interface or a TCPIP instrument had been connected last time and if the connection is offline at the next start of PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP), it could be no response until it is timeout (default is 120s). Workaround: If this is the case, get the connection back online. Another workaround is before launching PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP), open <UserHOME>/.icconfig file in a text editor, search for 'LINK HDWR "Hardware"', and at the dev_file_list section change the interface/connection name to "dummy". Cleaning up the temporary folder, which is normally '<UserHOME>\AppData\Local\Temp' on Windows, that PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP) uses could be a potential solution for the longer time to launch.
The BSIMCMG and BSIMBULK Package are not supported for simulation with the ADS simulator (hpeesofsim) for 32-bit platforms.	The 64-bit versions of ADS and IC-CAP work fine.
System variable WAFERPRO_HIDE_S2_STATUS does not work on Linux.	NA
In the DEFINE_EXTR_BOX Utilities transform, if you press   OK, Done! , the window is reopened, but it takes the parameter.	Press OK, Done! and close the Window using the Close window button (in top-right corner).
Using Two Port simulations with DC outputs in Eldo, some two port points (often only the first curve) will show minor variance from the Two Port Simulation alone. These variances have only been observed beyond 8 digits of precision. Keysight is working with Mentor to determine the root cause of this variance.	Unless the precision beyond 8 digits is crucial, this can be ignored.
ASM_HEMT_MODELING or MVSG_MODELING if opened through right click 'Edit...' will not load automatically the required *_GaN_UTILITIES model files. As a result most transform execution will show a Error: For ASM_HEMT_MODELING [...] Function iccap_func could not locate 'ASM_HEMT_GaN_UTILITIES/ [...] For MVSG_MODELING [...] Function iccap_func could not locate 'MVSG_GaN_UTILITIES/ [...]	Go to the Main IC-CAP window and double click on the ASM_HEMT_MODELING or MVSG_MODELING file.
Angelov-GaN modeling package: Tune/Optimize does not work with the ADS built-in model in ADS2019/ADS2020.	Since the angelov_gan.va file is no more included in the new ADS versions, the compiled va library of the model for the ADS versions was added in this  PathWave Device Modeling (IC-CAP) installation, which resolved the tuner/optimizer issue as a workaround. Note that the model name used in the package was changed from 'angelov_gan_va' to 'angelov_gan' as the default.
Angelov-GaN modeling package / ADA-HBT modeling package gives error: ERROR: Could not set Cal/State File Name [.cst only] to ...	The instrument option name of the PNA driver was changed to "Cal/State File Name [.csa|.cst only]". To update the internally-stored instrument options list, click Reset IO Table button in the Measure module window.
Angelov-GaN modeling package / ADA-HBT modeling package gives error: ERROR: Keysight PNA.xx.xx: While recalling calibration file : C:\134Users\134Public\134Network Analyzer\134Documents\134atxxx.csa	Use forward slash instead of back slash even on Windows, for example: C:/Users/Public/Network Analyzer/Documents/atxxx.csa C:/Program Files/Agilent/Network Analyzer/Documents/atxxx.csa Note: If the file is in the PNA-default folder (see PNA manual), just file name without path will work.
Angelov-GaN modeling package: simulation fails with ADS 2014 on Windows7 32-bit platform.	NA
B1500A: Invalid Pulse Width setting in the Instrument Options table results in Error-120: Incorrect parameter value.	Set valid Pulse Width: HPSMU/MPSMU/HRSMU: >= 500us MCSMU: >=50us / 2us resolution
Instrument option settings is not correctly handled in measurements if WPRO_INIT transform is added and it does not have the call to load instrument options.	Insert a line to call WPro_LoadInstrOptions(RoutineName, SetupName) function in the WPRO_INIT transform of the user-defined Routine/Setups.
E4991B is not supported.	NA
In B1500, the measurement fails with NI IO Library in the old instrument mode.	Close the Nucleus software and restart the computer.
Unable to simulate few setups in BSIMSOI4 Modeling Package using ADS 2019 Update 1.0 and ADS 2019.	Use ADS 2017 Update 1.0 for simulation in the BSIMSOI4 Modeling Package.

To view known issues from the previous release, refer: Release Notes 2018, Release Notes 2018 Update 0.1, and Release Notes 2018 Update 0.2.

Documentation

• On Windows, Printing directly from installed help generates non-readable output. Workaround: Use PDF version of the document for printing purpose.

• In the installed help when you open a page using the "Open a link in new tab" option the help does not open a page in a different tab by default. You need to set the preferences to open any link in a new tab. To set the preferences:

  1. From the 201x version of the installed help, Click Edit > Preferences. The Preferences Dialog box is displayed.

  2. Select the Options tab.

  3. Under Appearance, select the Show tabs for each individual page option.

  This is one time setting for a particular release of a product.
• While using the installed help, you may encounter issues like help not showing any content, it throws an error, it displays unexpected hierarchy in the Content tab, or it does not display any search results. Workaround: Close the help, delete the contents of the following directory and open the help again.
  • On Windows: C:\Users\<Windows_Login_ID>\AppData\Local\Keysight\Help        
  • On Linux: $HOME/.local/share/Keysight/Help
• The installed help search does not support [] or {} or any other text using these combinations.

Simulation

• • Segment Sweep with Noise analysis is not creating the correct netlist for the ADS simulator.
  • Simulating to ADS 2014.01 or later requires IC-CAP 2014.04 or newer version. Older versions of IC-CAP cannot work with ADS 2014.01 and beyond.
  • When performing ADS simulations with Verilog-A references using ADS 2014 and IC-CAP 2014.04 on Linux, ensure to set the environment variable, ADS_LICENSE_FILE, to reference your IC-CAP license file before launching IC-CAP. Without this setting, ADS will be unable to properly compile *.va files for simulation.

  • ADS simulations to IC-CAP 2016.01 are now performed in the $HOME/hpeesof/iccap_ads/data directory and not in the current working directory. Although it does not affect most simulations, if you direct ADS to load a file relative to the current working directory with the assumption that current working directory will be the same as IC-CAP, this will no longer work for simulations to ADS 2016.01. Please modify such netlists to refer to the full path of the file that ADS must access.

Installation

Licensing