Visual Design Diff

ClioSoft’s Visual Design Diff (VDD) gives users the power to quickly compare two versions of a schematic or layout by graphically highlighting the differences directly in the design editor. VDD has the option to ignore cosmetic changes so mere rearrangement or rerouting of wires will not be flagged. Users can also choose to invoke a hierarchical diff where all differences for the entire design hierarchy below the selected view will be flagged.

VDD detects changes that include any modifications to nets, instances, layers, labels and even properties. The differences are presented in a list. Users can select changes or step through the list. Selected changes are highlighted in the open editor window and automatically zoomed to the area of interest. A detailed textual description of each change is also presented and the entire change list can be archived into a text file.

VDD comes integrated with ClioSoft’s design management system but can also be deployed standalone with any other design management system or even if no design management system is being used. VDD can highlight the difference between two versions of the same cell-view or between any two cell-views of the same type.

The ability to quickly and visually identify changes has several uses and benefits:

Engineers can check changes before publishing a new revision of the cell-view.

Managers can review changes before approval.

Layout engineers can identify modifications made to schematics.

Layout ECOs can be reviewed without the time consuming process of generating and comparing GDS.

Supported Flows:

Cadence Virtuoso 6.x (OpenAccess)

Cadence Virtuoso 5.x (CDBA)

Supported View Types:

Schematic

Layout

Verilog