Running Agilent ADS Software

Setting up Your Account

Before you can run the ADS software, you will need a few things:

An account on the EECE network giving you access to the UNIX environment
Rudimentary knowledge of UNIX. A tutorial/refresher can be found here
Possibly edits to your UNIX startup file (.cshrc or .tcshrc) to allow the operating system to find the program. See section on environment variables below.

Running on the Sun Network

The EEsof ADS software that we have runs under the Solaris operating system on the department's Sun workstations. The easiest approach is to run from one of the Sparc machines in the EECE public computing lab. Alternatively, you can run from a linux machine and 'ssh' or 'telnet' into one of the Sparc servers. ('talon' and 'fang' are the primary machines).

If you use 'ssh' (e.g. ssh fang), then your connection should be set up automatically. That is, commands you type in the window should be executed on the remote machine and the window displays should appear on your linux machine. This is the preferred approach since ssh is a secure connection.
If you use "telnet", (not recommended), you must set up the remote machine to send the display information back to the Linux box. If you are not familiar with this process, click here for more info.

Environment Variables

If your account on the Sun machines does not already have ADS set up, you must tell the operating system and the program itself where they can find certain things. This can be done by adding the following lines to your '.tcshrc' file in your home directory. Note that you will have to log out and back in, or invoke a new shell before these changes will take effect.

    # variables and path for EESOF RF design program
    setenv   HPEESOF_DIR   /usr/local/hp1.3
    setenv   LM_LICENSE_FILE   $HPEESOF_DIR/licenses/license.dat
    set path = ( $path   $HPEESOF_DIR/bin )

Many users accounts are already set up with this information in their startup file, so you don't need to edit the .tchsrc file.

Starting the Program

After making the path and environment variable additions to your unix startup file (see above), type 'hpads' to start the program. After a few moments, you should see a small file browser come up. This is the "Main Window" in ADS (although not the most impressive looking one !) This browser can be used for navigating through your directories, and through those in the "project" you create when working with the program.

Getting Started

Select File > New Project from the Main Window.
Select the type of simulations you will be doing (e.g. RF for EECE662 or EECE664 projects).
Enter a project name, and hit Return or OK. (The program will append '_prj' to this so that projects can be easily recognized.)
After a few moments, the system should bring up a Schematic Editor. Follow directions in your assignment to draw and simulate your circuit. You can also read the tutorial in the comm lab to learn more about the program.