Subject: s2ibis2 error messages

From: Roland James Chang <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 16:50:49 -0700 (PDT)

first of all, I would like to extend my thanx to all that replied to my
last email seeking help with the s2ibis2 utility.  I've now obtained the
s2ibis2 utility and have been playing with it for the past few days.  

I am a university student on a work term at a leading supplier of ATM
components, and am finding it quite challenging to learn the entire IBIS
modelling standard in the span of a couple of days, so please bear with
me, if any of my questions sound too simple (or even stupid) :-)

I've been working through the examples (1-4) provided with the s2ibis2
utility but I cannot get example 2 to work (which deals with a simple
tristate buffer) It seems to be running into DC convergence problems.
This is the output that I get when I run the s2ibis2 utility on example 2
(with tristate.s2i setup for HSPICE):

****************************************************************************
* session on an xterm follows
****************************************************************************
17 <chang> s2ibis2.sun4 tristate.s2i

s2ibis2.sun4 v1.1 -- North Carolina State University
s2ibis2.sun4: Reading input file tristate...done.
s2ibis2.sun4: Analyzing component MCM Trisate Driver .
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input putout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input punout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input puxout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input dutout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input dunout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Spice run (MIN) aborted.  See file dunout.msg for
information.
         continuing with MAX run.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input duxout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input pdtout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input pdnout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input pdxout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input ddtout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input ddnout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input ddxout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input pctout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Spice run (TYP) aborted.  See file pctout.msg for
information.
         Curve power clamp not generated.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input gctout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input gcnout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input gcxout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input rutout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input runout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input ruxout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input rdtout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input rdnout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input rdxout.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input a00out.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input b00out.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input c00out.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input x00out.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input y00out.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input z00out.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Error in analysis for pin out.
s2ibis2.sun4: Opening file tristate.ibs for writing...done.
18 <chang> cat dunout.msg
>error          ***** hspice job aborted
        5.7 real         2.4 user         0.4 sys
19 <chang> cat pctout.msg
>error          ***** hspice job aborted
        4.1 real         1.3 user         0.2 sys
20 <chang>

***********************************************************************
* End Xterm session
***********************************************************************

I also found the following inside of dunout.out:

***********************************************************************
* excerpt from dunout.out
***********************************************************************
.
.
.
**warning** both nodes of source     0:vgnds2i
            are connected together

**warning** negative-mos conductance =     0:mx22             iter=   52
vds,vgs,vbs =      -2.74         0.109         0.861
 gm,gds,gmbs,ids=     2.147E-03     7.629E-05    -1.532E-04     3.768E-03
convergence problems in dc sweep curves at   3.5000
 resimulating with dc convergence controls

**diagnostic** dc convergence failure,
resetting dcon option to 1 and retrying

**diagnostic** dc convergence failure,
resetting dcon option to 2 and retrying.

**diagnostic** although this circuit has failed to converge
to gmindc=   1.000E-12, it did converge to a gmindc=   1.000E-10
for most circuits a value of gmindc 1e-7 or less,  is acceptable

*** error ***: no convergence in dc sweep curves at   3.5000

 ### note2  represents   cm**2*um/v**2-sec  ###

 ### @      represents   v**   ###

   2*** diffusion layer process parameters ***
    rshm=   2.10  ohms/sq      cjm= 931.91u f/m**2       cjw= 156.37p f/m
     ijs=  10.00n amp/m         pj= 850.00m volts        pjw= 850.00m
volts
     mj0= 487.07m              mjw= 478.48m              wdf=   0.
meters
      ds=   0.    meters

   3*** temperature coefficient parameters ***
     tcv=   0.    meters      ltcv=   0.    meters      wtcv=   0.
meters
     bex=  -1.50  meters      lbex=   0.    meters      wbex=   0.
meters
     fex=   0.    meters      lfex=   0.    meters      wfex=   0.
meters
     trs=   0.    meters      ltrs=   0.    meters      wtrs=   0.
meters
     trd=   0.    meters      ltrd=   0.    meters      wtrd=   0.
meters

**warning** both nodes of source     0:vgnds2i
     wnb=   0.    um/v         nd0=   0.    1/v          lnd=   0.    um/v
     wnd=   0.    um/v       k2lim=   0.             version=  95.20

 ### note1  represents   cm**2/v**2-sec   ###

 ### note2  represents   cm**2*um/v**2-sec  ###

 ### @      represents   v**   ###

   2*** diffusion layer process parameters ***
    rshm=   2.10  ohms/sq      cjm= 931.91u f/m**2       cjw= 156.37p f/m
     ijs=  10.00n amp/m         pj= 850.00m volts        pjw= 850.00m
volts
     mj0= 487.07m              mjw= 478.48m              wdf=   0.
meters
      ds=   0.    meters

   3*** temperature coefficient parameters ***
     tcv=   0.    meters      ltcv=   0.    meters      wtcv=   0.
meters
     bex=  -1.50  meters      lbex=   0.    meters      wbex=   0.
meters
     fex=   0.    meters      lfex=   0.    meters      wfex=   0.
meters
     trs=   0.    meters      ltrs=   0.    meters      wtrs=   0.
meters
     trd=   0.    meters      ltrd=   0.    meters      wtrd=   0.
meters

**warning** both nodes of source     0:vgnds2i
            are connected together

**warning** negative-mos conductance =     0:mx22             iter=   52
vds,vgs,vbs =      -2.74         0.109         0.861
 gm,gds,gmbs,ids=     2.147E-03     7.629E-05    -1.532E-04     3.768E-03
convergence problems in dc sweep curves at   3.5000
 resimulating with dc convergence controls

**diagnostic** dc convergence failure,
resetting dcon option to 1 and retrying

**diagnostic** dc convergence failure,
resetting dcon option to 2 and retrying.

**diagnostic** although this circuit has failed to converge
to gmindc=   1.000E-12, it did converge to a gmindc=   1.000E-10
for most circuits a value of gmindc 1e-7 or less,  is acceptable

*** error ***: no convergence in dc sweep curves at   3.5000

******
* min pullup (output disabled) curve for model tristate_driver
 ******  dc transfer curves               tnom=  25.000 temp= 100.000
******

.
.
.

*******************************************************************
* end excerpt from dunout.out
*******************************************************************

(I'm sorry for the length of this email)

I'm wondering if anyone else has had trouble running example 2?
If so, was the error the same? and if not does anyone have an explanation
for why example 2 doesn't run properly?

And finally, has anyone ever received this error message before?

"...
s2ibis2.sun4: Analyzing component S/UNI PLUS PM5347 .
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input putoutpi.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Data begin marker transfer not found in output file
putoutpi.out.
s2ibis2.sun4: Curve pullup not generated.
s2ibis2.sun4: Starting HSpice job with input dutoutpi.spi.
s2ibis2.sun4: Data begin marker transfer not found in output file
dutoutpi.out.
s2ibis2.sun4: Curve pullup (output disabled) not generated.
..."

Thanx for all your time.
sincerely,

roland
*************************************************************************
*Roland Chang                          | email: [email-masked]           *
*Simon Fraser University               |        OR                      *
*School of Engineering Science         |        [email-masked]  *
*3rd year Computer Engineering Option  |                                *
*************************************************************************

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 11:54:07 -0400 (EDT)

> =2E.."

Roland:

S2ibis2 looks for certain "marker" words or symbols that denote the
start of the data in the output file. In this case, since you're using
HSPICE, s2ibis2 looks for the word "transfer" in the output file, and
marks where it finds it as the start of data. (It's not actually the
exact beginning of the data, but it allows s2ibis2 to skip over the
huge "prelude" portion of the output file.) Basically, the error
message just means that s2ibis2 couldn't find the marker it was
looking for.

You can find all of the markers it uses in the file s2istrng.h. The
variable names are VIDataBeginMarker, tranDataBeginMarker, and
dataEndMarker. Each variable has five possible values, corresponding
to the various flavors of SPICE simulator (HSPICE, PSpice, SPICE2,
Spice3 and Spectre, in that order).

Hope this helps.

Regards,

-- 
Alan Glaser                         "It's not a competition,
ECE Dept.                            it's just a mint..." - K
North Carolina State University