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TCAD Release 8.5 General Known Software Problems

DMW Scheduler fails on Linux systems with Red Hat 9.x
Problem
DMW does not submit jobs to Red Hat 9.x machines and DMWUmpire reports that the system is not ready. All ISE TCAD tools running on the (unsupported) Linux version Red Hat 9.x give the following warning on standard output:

"Incorrectly built binary which accesses errno, h_errno or _res directly. Needs to be fixed."

Other tools give this warning, but to our knowledge no other adverse effects are accepted. The problem is caused by the basic libraries of Linux, glibc/pthread, which seem to have changed in an incompatible way in Red Hat Release 9.0.

ISE TCAD Releases 8.0, 8.5, and 9.0 are affected.

Solution
Use Red Hat Linux 7.1.In general, ISE cannot guarantee compatibility across different Red Hat releases and other Linux releases. However, the problem is under investigation and this web page will be updated if a solution is found.

Conversion problems from OMEGA bound format to DF-ISE boundary format
Problem
The conversion of a file from OMEGA bound format to DF-ISE boundary format, using the option -bound2bnd, does not work properly or fails.

Solution
Convert files using the ISE tool MESH as follows:

  1. Rename the extension of the bound format file (for example, for test.bound, change the extension to test.bnd).
  2. Run the ISE tool MESH on this file using the command:mesh -n -nop test.This will generate the required bnd file as test.bndNEW, which can be renamed test.bnd.


DESSIS cannot find certain materials in a structure file
Problem
Certain materials have aliases, for example, Oxide/SiO2, PolySi/PolySilicon, Si3N4/Nitride, Photoresist/Resist, and Gas/Vacuum/Ambient.

Currently, DESSIS recognizes only one name for such materials. This name is the first one that appears in the datexcodes.txt file.

Solution
Use the first material name appearing in the datexcodes.txt file. For the distributed version of the datexcodes.txt file, the recommended names for these materials are Oxide, PolySi, Si3N4, Photoresist, and Gas.

Tecplot fails on certain Linux installations
Problem
On Linux Red Hat 9.0 or other Linux installations based on the kernel version 2.4, Tecplot fails with error messages such as:

tecplot.shared: relocation error:libtec.so: symbol errno, version GLIBC_2.0 notdefined in file libc.so.6 with link time reference

Solution
  1. Edit the file $ISEROOT/tecplot/ix86/2.2/bin/tecplot.
  2. Change the top of the file to look like:
    #!/bin/sh
    LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.1
    export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL
  3. If the problem persists, change it to:
    export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.

DMW does not launch jobs on certain Linux computers
Problem
On Linux computers with more than 2 GB of RAM, the program DMWMole incorrectly reports the amount of free memory. Consequently, DMW does not submit jobs to these computers.

Solution
A patched version of the DMWMole 8.5 binary is available upon request from ISE Support.

Conflict with locally installed Tcl/Tk versions
Problem
Tcl scripts distributed by ISE may fail if a local version of the Tcl interpreter (tclsh) is used instead of the Tcl interpreter distributed with the ISE TCAD Release 8.5 (or earlier) tool suite.

Solution
Change the binary search order (environment variable PATH so that the Tcl/Tk interpreter distributed by ISE (location $ISEROOT/bin) is found before any local versions of tclsh

Ensure that the environment variables TCL_LIBRARY, TK_LIBRARY, BWIDGET_LIBRARY, BLT_LIBRARY, and ISEROOT_LIB are not defined. These variables are set automatically when the ISE tools are called. (A predefined value of these environment variables may result in error messages such as 'valid init.tcl not found' and ISE tools may fail to work properly.)

Synopsys/ Former ISE TCAD visualization tools do not display on Linux when run remotely on IBM AIX
Problem
An IBM server using a Linux machine as the display does not display visual results. This is a problem with the X Windows implementation on certain Linux versions.

Solution
There is no known solution to this problem. However, this problem is not observed when using Red Hat 8.0.

Slowdown on a single-processor machine
Problem
ISE TCAD tools run considerably slower on a uniprocessor machine if the environment variable for parallel execution is set to a value greater than 1.

Solution
Ensure that the environment variable for parallel execution is set to 1.

Multithreading not available on IBM AIX with PARDISO
Problem
The linear solver PARDISO does not run on IBM if the environment variable for parallel execution is set to a value greater than 1.

Solution
A patch will be available at a later date.

Path to Acrobat® Reader® binaries
Problem
Acrobat® Reader® (or Acrobat®) does not start from GENESISe or GENESISe9 if the path to the Acrobat® Reader® binary is not part of the UNIX or Windows search path.

Solution
Add the path to the Acrobat® Reader® binary to the UNIX or Windows search path. If the problem persists, check the preference settings of GENESISe or GENESISe9.

Failed nodes in optimization example
Problem
Some nodes in the Examples Library project
/Application/Optimization/MOS_Optimization fail.

Solution
This is to illustrate that during an optimization run combinations of input parameters may occur, which can lead to failures in simulation. The optimization algorithms are designed to cope with a limited number of failures.

Empty directories in Examples Library
Problem
The Examples Library contains empty directories:
/Tools/Mdraw/DirectTunneling/Tools
/Mdraw/trench_igbt
/Tools/Dessis/nf_extraction

Solution
Ignore these entries.

GENESISe9 batch tool 'gsub' fails under LSF
Problem
Calls to 'gsub' fail under LSF cross-platform operations because the wrong binary for 'gjob' is invoked.

Solution
Edit the file $ISEROOT/tcad/8.5/lib/glib/tooldb.tcl.
Replace the line:
set WB_binaries(tool,gjob) 'gjob -verbose'
with:
set WB_binaries(tool,gjob) '$app_data(bin_dir)/gjob -verbose'

Possible conflict with locally installed Tcl/Tk versions
Problem
The environment variable TCL_LIBRARY may point to a locally installed Tcl/Tk version that is incompatible with the ISE TCAD tools. Error messages such as 'valid init.tcl not found' may appear and ISE tools may fail to work properly.

Solution
Set the environment variable TCL_LIBRARY to $ISEROOT/tcad/$ISERELEASE/lib/tcl8.2.

Dialog boxes from the ISE tools window appear to vanish
Problem
On CDE/SunOS systems, dialog boxes opened from ISE tools may go to the background, hidden by other open windows, and ISE tools seem to stall.

Solution
Open the CDE Style Manager. Select the Window Manager and disable the option Allow primary window on top.

Order of LIGEDIT plugins not correct
Problem
The order of items in certain LIGEDIT menus may be platform dependent. LIGEDIT loads plugins in the order that the file names are reported by the operating system. This order may differ from plattform to platform.

Solution
There is no known solution to this problem.

Online manuals cannot be printed
Problem
Pages from the online manuals can only be printed when Acrobat® Reader® 5.0 is used as viewer.

Solution
Install Acrobat® Reader® 5.0.

'Missing binaries' message on Solaris 7 and 8
Problem
ISE TCAD by default searches for 32-bit binaries under the (64-bit) operating system Solaris 7 and 8.

Solution
Set the environment variable ISEBITS to 64.
For example, under csh shell:

Unix > setenv ISEBITS 64
or under bash shell:
bash > ISEBITS=64
bash > export ISEBITS

Tecplot-ISE does not start
Problem
Tecplot-ISE requires OpenGL. If OpenGL is not installed, an error message with the word 'libGLw.so.1' appears when launching Tecplot-ISE.

Solution
Install the OpenGL libraries. Contact your hardware vendor.
If you cannot install OpenGL, consider running the older version of Tecplot-ISE 'Tecplot-ISE8'. NOTE: With ISE TCAD Release 9.0, 'Tecplot-ISE8' will no longer be shipped.

DESSIS-8.0.6 fails on HP-UX
Problem
On HP-UX 11.00 or HP-UX 11i, DESSIS-8.0.6 fails with the error message:
For the dessis (dessis-8.0.6) patch,
can't find library libcps.2, segmentation fault

Solution
Download and install the operating system patch PHSS_26912 from HP.

Known Window Problems

Synopsys/ Former ISE TCAD cannot be used without administrator privileges
Problem
If ISE TCAD software is installed by an administrator, users without administrator privileges cannot start ISE tools. An error message such as ISE TCAD Software not installed for Release "8.5" is displayed.

The problem relates to a conflict of permissions during ISE TCAD installation by the Cygwin bash shell. It cannot be fixed by changing the permissions under Windows.

Solution
After Installing ISE TCAD software as an administrator, open a Cygwin bash shell and change the working directory to the ISE TCAD install directory by using:

bash$ cd $ISEROOT
Then, recursively change all file access permissions to enable read and execution access for all users:
bash$ chmod -R 755 * 

Drag-and-drop operation in GENESISe 8.5 does not work
Problem
On certain Windows installations, dragging a node from the Family Table to the Tecplot or INSPECT icon fails to load the corresponding .dat and .plt files into the visualization tool.

Solution
A patched version of the GENESISe configuration file tooldbNT.tcl is available. Contact ISE Support.

Tools fail to open
Problem
The ISE tools MDRAW and DIOS require an X server to display results in user mode. Hummingbird Exceed version 7.0 does not automatically open an X server. As a result, MDRAW displays error messages such as 'cannot open connect stream' and DIOS does not display in user mode.

Solution
To enable the display on a terminal, the user must, at every login, click the Start button and select the Program tab, the Hummingbird Connectivity 7.0 tab, and the Exceed tab to the Exceed application. This starts the X server for that session. Note that the X server must be restarted at every login.

MDRAW does not open
Problem
The shell in which MDRAW is started displays 'starting mdraw…' but the GUI does not open.

Solution
The application requires the variable DISPLAY to be set. Create a local environment variable with the name DISPLAY and a suitable value. The value 127.0.0.1:0 is displayed to the local machine. This change persists across startups and shutdowns, and, therefore, does not need to be repeated. Alternatively, a systems administrator can create this as a System variable.

License manager does not start
Problem
A system service for the license manager is created with lmtools, but the service does not start.

Solution
In the lmtools 'configure services' window, specify the full path to lmgrd:%ISEROOT%\tcad\8.5\ix86\WinNT\etc\lmgrd.exe

Missing license directory after installation
Problem
The installation script does not create a license directory.

Solution
Manually create a directory called 'licenses' under C:\ISE_TCAD (default path). Copy the ISE license file license.dat into this directory.

Online manuals cannot be opened
Problem
When opening the online manuals from the Windows launcher
Start > Programs > ISE TCAD v8.5 > Online Manuals
an error message appears.

Solution
The user has to change the path using the following procedure:

  1. Start > Programs > ISE TCAD v8.5 > Online Manuals.
  2. Right-click and select Properties.
  3. Change the path toC:\ISE_TCAD\tcad\8.5\manuals\PDFManual\front.pdf

License lookup failure
Problem
User cannot start license manager.

Solution
Check security and permissions of C:\ISE_TCAD folder as discussed in Section 4 of Installation and Getting Started Manual on Windows.