Waveform viewer: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 14:15, 14 November 2011
A waveform viewer is a software tool for viewing the signal levels of either a digital or analog circuit design.[1]
Waveform viewers comes in two varieties:
- simulation waveform viewers for displaying signal levels of simulated design models, and
- in-circuit waveform viewers for displaying signal levels captured in-circuit while debugging or testing hardware boards (Also, See Waveform monitor)
Simulation waveform viewers
In integrated circuit design, waveform viewers are typically used in conjunction with a simulation. A waveform view allows an IC designer to see the signal transitions over time and the relation of those signals with other signals in an IC design, which is typically written in a hardware description language. Simulators can be used to interactively capture wave data for immediate viewing on a waveform viewer; however, for integrated circuit design the usage model is typically to save the output of simulation runs by running batch jobs and to view the waveforms off-line as a static database.[1]
Waveform viewers allow you to zoom in and out over a time sequence, and take measurements between two cursor points. In addition, the waveform view has many ways of displaying signal information, such as in hexadecimal, binary, or a symbolic value.[1]
Most waveform viewers can read an industrial standard waveform database known as Value Change Dump (VCD) or a proprietary wave format. The proprietary wave formats usually have faster record and playback speeds or require smaller memory store space, or save additional signal information for viewing, such as bus transactions.[1]
List of the most well-known viewers
| waveform viewer | tool suite | developer | Platform | features | wave formats | Screenshot |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VcdView | NA | Ted Rossin | Windows | digital | *.vcd | |
| EZwave | Questa ADMS | Mentor Graphics | Linux, Solaris, Windows | analog, RF, digital and mixed-signal | *.wdb, *.tab, *.cou, *.sti, *.tr%, *.ac%, *.sw%, *.vcd, *.fsdb, *.csv, *.swd, *.dofile, *.dof, *.do, *.tcl | |
| Simvision | NCSim | Cadence Design Systems | Linux, Solaris, Windows | digital, analog, transactions | *.trn, *.shm, *.vcd | |
| vsim | Modelsim | Mentor Graphics | Linux, Solaris, Windows | digital, analog | *.wlf, *.vcd | |
| finewave/PowerView | FineSim | Magma Design Automation | Linux, Solaris | digital, analog | *.fsdb, *.vcd | |
| WaveViewer | works with: VeriLogger | SynaptiCAD | Linux, Solaris, Windows | digital, analog, test equipment, free, high capacity, editable | *.btim, *.csdf, *.tdml, *.vcd, 20+ other formats | |
| Wave VCD | works with: CVer | Interconnect Systems Solutions | Windows | digital, Free, good-quality | *.vcd | File:Wave vcd screenshot.jpg |
| WaveProbe | LogicSim | Zeemz | Windows | digital, analog | *.wave | |
| vwave | Undertow | Veritools | Linux, Solaris, Windows | digital, analog, transactions | *.vcd | |
| nWave | Verdi | SpringSoft | Linux, Solaris | digital, analog, transactions, assertions | fsdb, *.vcd | |
| WaveCrave | Analog FastSPICE Platform | Berkeley Design Automation | Linux, Solaris | analog, RF, digital | PSF ASCII, PSF binary, tr0, FSDB, Nutmeg ASCII, Nutbin, Nutbinf | |
| Scansion | NA | Logic Poet | Mac OS | digital, analog, TLM transaction viewer, native Mac application | *.vcd, *.scnx | |
| GTKWave | NA | Tony Bybell | Linux, Windows, Mac OS, Unix | digital, free/open source | *.lxt (Icarus Verilog), *.lxt2 (Icarus Verilog), *.vzt, *.ghw (GHDL), *.vcd, *.evcd *.fst (Icarus Verilog, CVC, CVER_FST), *.fsdb (if fsdbdebug is present in shell search path) | 
|
| Styx | Hades | Norman Hendrich | Unix | digital, free/open source | ? | |
| Dinotrace | Veripool | Wilson Snyder | Linux, Solaris, Windows | digital, free/open source | *.vcd, *.ascii | |
| Waveform Window | DVE | Synopsys Inc | Linux, Solaris | digital,analog | VCD,eVCD,VPD | |
| Electric | Electric | Static Free Software (staticfreesoft.com) | All (Java) | Integration of schematics and layout with waveform viewer. | tr0, pa0, sw0, ac0, mt0 (Hspice), out (Nanosim), spo (Spice/GNUCap), txt (PSpice), raw (SmartSpice, LTSpice), dump (Verilog). | |
| Custom WaveView | Discovery AMS | Synopsys | Linux, Solaris, HP, Windows | Analog, RF, digital and mixed-signal, scripting/batch mode, jitter measurements, DAC toolbox, FFT/iFFT, A->D and D->A conversion, Synopsys/Cadence/Mentor Graphics/JEDAT/Silicon Canvas integration into schematic capture, re-usable measurement templates, HSPICE .measure GUI, digital waveform comparisons, parametric analysis, 3D plots, extremely fast. | Synopsys: HSPICE tr0, sw0, ac0, mt0, hb0, nw0, lis (Binary/ASCII); StarSim wdb, wv, xp (binary); HSIM/NanoSim/XA wdb (binary); HSIM/NanoSim/TimeMill/Powermill out, vector, .mt file (ASCII); Saber AI/PL (binary/ASCII); VCS/Magellan/DVE VPD (binary); WDF format (binary). Cadence: Spectre PSF, WSF (binary/ASCII); runObjFile; PSPICE DAT (binary), Allegro SIM (ASCII); Verilog VCD (ASCII); ModelSim WLF (binary). Mentor Graphics: ELDO/ADMS COU, WDB (binary), AdiT TR0/TB0. SPICE3/SmartSpice raw format (binary/ASCII). Agilent ADS .ds format (binary), TouchStone S-parameters (ASCII). CSDF (Common Simulation Data Format) (ASCII). Novas fsdb files (binary, v4.1). Text file, CSV (comma separated values) format. Other in-house simulator formats: SDIF, MICS, TI-punch (binary). Data from oscilloscopes. |
In-circuit waveform viewers
These are built into most logic analyzer, data acquisition cards, and automatic test equipment. In-circuit waveform viewers are included with products from: