Useful Keyboard shortcuts or Keybinds for Cadence Virtuoso: Be more Productive

(Last Updated On: 3 December, 2019)

What are the most useful keyboard shortcuts in Cadence? With these keybinds, you will take advantage of the comlpex Cadence tool.

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Here I will resume the most useful keyboard shortcuts or boundkey to use Cadence Virtuoso in an effective and fast manner. Learning bindkeys is the best way to be productive on this complex EDA tool.

Schematic:

Basics

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

i –> insert an instance from the library

w –> add a wire

m –> move tool

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

q –> edit parameters of the selected instance

l  –>   label a wire

ESC (or Cntrl+D) –> unselect the actual tool (unselect the currently selected device)

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 which show you the warnings, but you can not undo anymore.  If want to check the warnings but maybe undo, but you may press only x.

Advanced

navigate

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

Shift + Delete –> Comment out/uncomment a block

Shift + click –> Add component to selection

Ctril + click –> Delete component from selection

Comment the schematics

Shift+N –> insert a text note

N –> insert a shape

less used

P –> add a pin

(space bar) –> connect wires to the pins

Remove a component from the wires

By pressing Control key, and removing a component from the wires.

Mouse shortcuts

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

Using the 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

Navigate

Ctrl+mouse scroll –> Y-scale zoom

Shift+mouse scroll –> Time-scale zoom

Layout editor

K(and  Shift +K) –> add rules to measure distance ( delete all the rules)

F4 –> change between selecting edges or polygones

e –> options

r –> add a rectangle

p–> add a path

a –> align

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

Shift + G –> add a Guard Ring

Ctrl +Z or Shift +Z (also mouse wheel) –> zoom in/out

Advanced

X –> descend view (or double click)

Shift +B –> return or ascend view

Shift + M –> Merge two shapes

Shift + C –> Make a hole in a shape

Create your own shortcuts

Normally we don’t know by heart the function call that Cadence uses to do the action we want to make the shortcut. Therefore, we have to read the function in the CIW window of Cadence. Normally the functions calls are filtered out.

Go to Options>>Log Filter

Then select everything (you can unselect all later). Now every action, menu or button you use in Cadence, you can read the actual function Cadence is using.

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

So I open the Layout editor and go to the menu Create>>via. After that I go to the CIW log and read the function:

leHiCreateVia()

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

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:

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