Meaning of few lines of AEL code in ADS Design Kit Development manual?

[Prabhanshu]

In the design kit development manual of ADS under the Design Kit Tutorial, there is a item definition code given for a sample_res resistor subcircuit.(Page 234 of 2019 manual or Pg 147 of 2011 manual)(manual is available on website)

In that code there are a few AEL functions whose explanation is not given anywhere (either AEL manual or keysight website), the unknown functions are bolded:

decl formDefP = dm_find_library_form("SampleKit",
sample_res_type_default);

checkVal=SampleKit_v1_parm_checkRange("Resistance", R, nth(0,
rangeList), nth(1, rangeList), "Ohm");

w =SampleKit_v1_parm_checkStep("w",w,0.1e-6,"um");

It'll be a great help if someone who has tried design kit development in ADS could answer this. Thankyou.

[Moderator action: removed private email address]

 

[volker@muehlhaus]

I did a lot of ADS AEL and PDK development.

I would expect that the Samplekit functions are defined in another *.ael file loaded by the PDK's boot file.
But dm_find_library_form looks like an undocument function, I never used that.

 

[Prabhanshu]

I did a lot of ADS AEL and PDK development.

I would expect that the Samplekit functions are defined in another *.ael file loaded by the PDK's boot file.
But dm_find_library_form looks like an undocument function, I never used that.

You were right @volker@muehlhaus , the Samplekit functions are defined inside the boot file itself, I don't know why I did not see that myself. However its very irresponsible of the person who made the user manual and did not mention it in the boot.ael code given in the tutorial, code in tutorial does not have these functions but the actual file does, I don't how they expected us to run the code without informing people about the functions in the tutorial.

But the library_form function is still nowhere to be found. I remember there are few more functions in Netlist Include component code and all, whose explanation is not in AEL usermanual!

Since you mentioned you have worked a lot with ADS AEL and PDK, I'd like to ask where did you learn those, when you started I mean. I am a masters student and all I have is surfing the web and ADS user-manuals. I think I might have to ask you a few more questions down the line.
Thanks a lot.

 

[volker@muehlhaus]

I'd like to ask where did you learn those, when you started I mean.

Back then, I booked a 2 day Keysight course on AEL and PDK development. That was really worth the money!

And then I just started, my main use is automation for EM simulation as shown here: https://muehlhaus.com/products/rfic-inductor-toolkit-for-ads

You are right that some commands are not document, or when you record the AEL macro using Tools > Start Recording Macro, they sometimes use equivalent command instead of the documented commands. You need a bit of guessing sometimes.

 

[Prabhanshu]

Back then, I booked a 2 day Keysight course on AEL and PDK development. That was really worth the money!

And then I just started, my main use is automation for EM simulation as shown here: https://muehlhaus.com/products/rfic-inductor-toolkit-for-ads

You are right that some commands are not document, or when you record the AEL macro using Tools > Start Recording Macro, they sometimes use equivalent command instead of the documented commands. You need a bit of guessing sometimes.

Hey volker can you take a look at this?

https://www.edaboard.com/threads/how-to-create-model-file-net-file-for-a-pdk-in-ads.394265/

 

[volker@muehlhaus]

Sorry, I can't help with that. My work is on EM mostly and I haven't created such netlist files for my PDKs.