Custom Compiler In-Design Assistants – part 2

Planning which metal shape goes on which color (mask) is key when designing in a FinFET process, especially when propagating connections through the layout hierarchy. In addition, highly matched signals such as complementary clocks must be assigned to the same color, as routes on different masks have different resistances. So how do we ensure we are keeping things in order with respect to the matching of resistance and capacitance?

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Custom Compiler Layout Assistants – part 1

On March 30th Silicon Valley was buzzing with excitement. Synopsys held the Silicon Valley SNUG event and revealed Custom Compiler, a fresh approach to custom design that employs visually-assisted automation technologies to speed up common design tasks, reduce iterations and enable reuse. During the event the R&D folks did a walkthrough of the technology ‘under the hood’ and showed the audience some cool layout assistants that leverage the graphical use model familiar to layout designers while eliminating the need to write complicated code and constraints.

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What do layout engineers really need for FinFET – part 1

Over the last series of blogs we have looked at what tools the layout engineer has available to him/her to help them deal with the complexity of doing layout with FinFETs. Even though there are tools that help, the fact is there is still a productivity hit when comparing the time it takes to do a FinFET based layout versus a planar CMOS layout. When I asked my layout colleagues “how much longer does it take to do a FinFET based design versus planar CMOS?” they said it takes 2-3X more time.

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About

Welcome to Custom Layout Insights! Our goal is to use this blog to discuss how we can drag custom layout into the 21st century by looking to the past for inspiration and the future for innovation. I encourage you to chip in with your 2 cents.

About the Author

Graham Etchells

I started in EDA before it was termed EDA. It was simply Computer-Aided Design back in 1977. I was working at GEC Traction in Manchester England (yes, I am a Brit) doing control gear for locomotives. It was all heavy duty relays and contactors back in those days. Then came the electronics revolution and with it came the first CAD system. It was a CALMA GDS1 system with green vector refresh displays and huge digitizers for entering the data. It was amazing what you could do with a Data General Eclipse computer and 16K (yes, Kilobytes) of core memory! Pretty soon I was running the CAD system, which at the time was one of the largest in Europe, if not the world. CALMA was expanding and I was recruited as an applications engineer. That was it; I was in EDA and have been ever since. I have held marketing and sales positions at Silvar Lisco and Neolinear and I have been chasing the holy grail of analog/custom layout automation ever since I ran marketing for Virtuoso at Cadence back in 1995. Past experience tells me we may never find the Holy Grail, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Follow this blog and see how we at Synopsys are progressing.