Cad Wiki for Analog IC Courses

When one opens up a cadence cell for editing (schematic, layout, symbol, etc), Cadence automatically creates a temporary file called a lock file. The lock file prevents another user from opening up the same file for edit.

As an example, when one creates a “inv” cell for an inverter, and creates a “layout” view and a file called: ece510\inv\layout\layout.oa is created to store all of the layout.

When one is working on the inverter, cadence creates a “lock” file called: ece510\inv\layout\layout.oa.cdslck ←-notice the “lock” extension

This makes it so only the person who has the file open can edit/change the inverter's layout.

When one saves and closes the layout file, the “lock” file is deleted, so that in the future it can be opened for edit again.

If one is editing the inverter's layout in cadence, and for some reason cadence crashes or exits for some unexpected reason, the “layout.cdb.cdslck” file may not be deleted, due to the crash.

When this happens, once cadence is restarted, the lock file is still in place. This will make it so you cannot open the inverter's layout. We must remove this lock file manually, as cadence is not intelligent enough on its own to understand what is happening.

Two situations may occur:

1) When you start cadence, it takes a very long time to startup, and when it does, it gives the warning: *WARNING* file /home/ugrad/(yourusernamehere)/CDS.log Connection refused

2) Once cadence is open you attempt to open up a view in cadence, say your inverter's layout as an example, it may take a very long time to open. It may never open. In this case, you probably have a left behind lock file.

We have two possible methods:

To list all edit locks on files below current directory, type

 ale . 

To remove all edit locks on files below current directory, type

 are . 

To release edit locks on all files in a library or a specific directory, type

 are /path/to/your/library/directory 

We can also use clsAdminTool directly from command terminal. To list all the edit locks type

 clsAdminTool -ale . 

We can also use clsAdminTool directly from command terminal. To remove all the edit locks type

 clsAdminTool -are . 

Follow these steps:

1) login to a unix workstation (or ssh to hobbes from home)

2) EXIT cadence (if you have it open)

3) from the terminal type in the following commands:

   cd ~
   rm -rf *.cdslck

   cd ~/cadence
   find . -name '*.cdslck' -exec rm {} \;
   find . -name '*.oacache' -exec rm {} \;

It should not prompt you to delete, but if it prompts you to “delete” a file, say yes!

4) Now start cadence, and it should be cleared up.