List of useful Cadence keyboard Shortcuts or Hotkeys for Virtuoso

What are the most useful keyboard shortcuts in Cadence? With these bindkeys, you will increase your productivity to work better & faster!!

Mastering Cadence Virtuoso, a very complex EDA tool, is a time-intensive task, often requiring months, if not years, of dedicated practice.

However, exploiting keyboard shortcuts can significantly boost your learning process, serving as a fast track in navigating the complexities of Cadence’s interface and moving  one big step forward in the steep Cadence learning curve!!

In this list, I gathered the most useful keyboard shortcuts or hotkeys to use Cadence Virtuoso and Layout XL. I divided it into Schematic and layout, basic, intermediate and advanced.

Learning these shortcuts is key to being productive with this tool

I’ll also provide a guide on creating or changing keybinds at the end. It is a step-by-step tutorial on how to create new or modify the Cadence shortcuts.

Cadence Virtuoso (Schematic)

Basics

f –> Fit to screen. Autozoom the schematic to the size of your window

i –> insert a new instance from the library

w –> add a wire

m –> move tool

c –> copy instance (also by holding SHIFT and dragging a component)

q –> edit parameters of the selected instance

l  –>   label a wire (lower case L)

ESC (or Cntrl+D) –> unselect the actual tool  or unselect the currently selected device. “select none”

Delete –> Remove a component or wire

u –> undo an action

Shift+x –> Check + Save the schematic (important! after you “check + save” you can not undo to a previous state)

x –> schematic check

If you “check+ save” you see a prompt window you can not undo anymore.  If want to check the warnings of your circuit, better you may press only x.

Intermediate

Shift + Delete –> Comment out/uncomment a block

r –> rotate the selected component

(space bar) –> having selected a pin or an instance. It generates wires attached to the pins with the label

navigation

Shift+mouse scroll –> scroll the schematic horizontally

Ctrl+mouse scroll –> scroll the schematic vertically

Z or select a region with right mouse button –> zoom into a box with the mouse

Shift +E  –> descend to an inner level (e –> descend to an inner level only read)

Cntrl +E –> ascend or exit to a upper level

Cntrl + TAB or Cntrl + Shift + Tab –> Move between tabs (same as in windows)

Cntrl + w –> close tab

Component selection

Shift + click –> Add component to selection

Ctrl + click –> Delete component from selection

Comment the schematics with text and shapes

Shift+n –> insert a text note

n –> insert a shape

Advanced

p –> add a pin

Ctrl + r –> Flip vertical

Shit + r –> Mirror horizontal

Shift + u –> redo

o –> display options for the schematic view

Ctrl +a –> Select all

F3 –> Current function option menu

F6 –> Redraw the display

Mouse shortcuts

Scroll –> zoom

Ctrl+mouse drag –>Remove a component from the wires

By pressing Control key, you can move a component when it is attached to wires. You remove a component from the connected wires, without moving the wires.

Note: if you do the same but with the shift key, you will make a copy.

Mouse Buttons

Many actions, can be done directly with your mouse buttons.

For that, pay attention to the top of the status bar (down of the window) and look for mouse shortcuts.

• L: Left mouse button
• M: middle button or press the roulette
• R: Right mouse button

Plots or Graphs

Ctrl+R –> reload or update the plots with new data

h –> new Horizontal marker

v –> new Vertical marker

m –> new point marker

Ctrl+E –> delete all the markers

a + b –> Add a delta marker cursor. First click “a” with the cursors pointing on the plot, then move the cursor and press b.

Navigate

Ctrl+mouse scroll –> Y-scale zoom

Shift+mouse scroll –> Time-scale zoom

f –> fit zoom to the entire graph

Layout Editor

Basics

K  –> add rules to measure distance

Shift +K –> delete all the rules

r –> add a rectangle

p–> add a path

a –> align

s –> strech

Equal as in shcematic

c –> copy instance

ESC (or Cntrl+D) –> unselect the actual tool  or unselect the currently selected device. “select none”

f –> fit zoom to screen

q –> edit parameters of the selected instance

Delete –> Remove a component or wire

Intermediate

e –> options

Ctrl+F or Shift+F –> switch between visible and invisible instance layouts

Shift + G –> add a Guard Ring

Component selection

Shift + click –> Add component to selection

Ctrl + click –> Delete component from selection

Advanced

F3 –> Current function option menu

F4 –> change between selecting edges or polygons

x –> descend view (or double click)

Shift +b –> return or ascend view

Shift + m –> Merge two shapes

Shift + c –> Chop. Make a hole in a layout shape

Ctrl + s –> Split

How to create your own user-defined shortcuts

In Cadence, it is not so straightforward to create your user-defined key shortcuts like in another tools. At least on the current Cadence Virtuoso 6.17-64b Version

Find the command

Every action made in Cadence corresponds to a textual command or function call.

First of all, we need to know the command. Often, we don’t know by heart the function that Cadence uses to do the action we want to shortcut.

But… generally, the functions calls are filtered out from the CIW window. Yes, life is not easy!!!

To activate them:

In the CIW window –> Go to Options>>Log Filter

Then select to display everything (you can unselect all later).

From now on every action, menu or button you touch in Cadence, is kept registered. Wowww!!

Example for a custom Shortcut

In this example, I want to make the bindkey of “Create via” in the layout editor and attach it to the key ‘o’.

create via –> ‘o’

In this case, I open the Cadence Layout editor and go to the menu Create>>via. After that I go to the CIW log and read the function:

leHiCreateVia()

Now we go to Options>>Bindkeys…

In the layout section with a right mouse click you can create a ‘new bindkey’.

Later, add the key you want to bind and copy&paste the function.

Disclaimer: It is normal that the key you want to assign, is already defined by default to another function. As it can be seen in the next figure. Just remove or redefine the previous key assignation and press OK.

To save your Shortcuts and use it later or in another machine…

You always can store your own Bindkeys to export (or share) to other machine or system. You can save them into a *.il file and then load it from the .cdsinit file when starting up Cadence.

The .cdsinit file is used typically to define application bindkeys and to load customer-specific SKILL utilities.

The .cdsinit file looks like:

————————————————————————————————————————————————-

I hope this post was useful for You. Share it with your people who may need it!! 🙂