Mentor Blogs

Density and the Analog Cell Analog design is a very sensitive business. Unlike the digital world, where circuits are on or off, and have built in hysteresis to prevent inadvertent toggling, analog circuitry is intentionally designed to respond to minor fluctuations in the signal. As a result, analog layout is riskier than digital. To prevent race conditions, or minor (yet potentially catastrophic) … Read More

density, DRC, analog, layout

In my last blog I discussed the importance of support and the value it provides in the physical verification space.  As indicated, one of the key components in providing support is having an infrastructure helps to assure quality software releases in the first place.  In this blog, I will provide more insight into the procedures in place within the Calibre organization that help to ensure the high standards … Read More

DRC, Mentor, Calibre, Quality, Physical Verificaiton, PV

When asked about the value that the Calibre platform brings to the design community, most folks will respond with performance, foundry support, and ease of debugging. While these are all valuable aspects and traits of Calibre, there is one more benefit that is often taken for granted: support. The word “support” is something bandied around loosely in EDA. Saying you have good support is akin to saying … Read More

DRC, EDA Ssoftware Support, Calibre, LVS, Physical Verification

Historically, design rule checking (DRC) was a black or white proposition—either you passed all your DRC’s or you fixed the errors until you did pass.  Fast forward to today where much/most of the IP you use is from 3rd parties and/or your product has an increasing percentage of memory content and your design is never DRC clean at tape out.  Your design team is now constantly waiving over and over and … Read More

Foundry, Foundries, IC Design, DRC, SVRF, Tax, Waiver, Calibre, Physical Verification, Fab-lite, Productivity, Fabless, Sign-off, eqDRC, SoC, Equation-Based DRC

Since DAC we have heard a lot about physical verification tools claiming they can read the Calibre(R) SVRF/TVF syntax natively. This blog explores why competitive EDA companies are trying to use Calibre SVRF/TVF, the challenges involved, and the risks to customers. Why Do Competing PV Products Want to Use Calibre SVRF? Calibre is a primary sign-off standard at all the major foundries and IDMs, and … Read More

Foundries, Fabless, Foundry, TVF, Translators, Direct Read, PV, DRC, Sign-off, SVRF, Calibre, Syntax, IC Design, Equation-Based DRC, IDM, Fab-lite, Native Read, Physical Verification, eqDRC

I don’t normally take the time to respond to any of the various competitive claims out there. But recently in ESNUG 483, item #2, there was a posting entitled “We recently dumped Mentor Calibre for Magma Quartz DRC/LVS” (http://www.deepchip.com/items/0483-02.html) that I feel needs to be addressed because it is misleading. So let me lay out the facts to set the record straight. Tezzaron Semiconductor … Read More

Deepchip, DRC, Calibre, Quartz, Tezzaron, LVS, Physical Verification

In case you missed the webinar by Jim Culp on November 3rd, I wanted to give you an opportunity to see what you missed. Jim is a Senior Engineer in IBM’s Advanced Physical Design and Technology Integration team. He is leading a team in the development of Parametric DFM and the mitigation of Circuit Limited Yield (CLY). During the webinar he discussed how CLY is becoming the leading contributor to yield … Read More

Physical Verification, Yield, Design Quality, Design for Manufacturing, IC Verification, Leakage, DRC, IC Design

A new season of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” recently started. Have you seen this show? My wife, Cherie, loves it; she finds it inspirational to watch these folks put them through such a tough ordeal in order to improve their health. I enjoy it as well, though my motives are completely different. There are some pretty large individuals on that show. Somehow watching them makes me feel less self-conscious … Read More

DRC, Performance, Calibre, Runtime, Scaling, Physical Verification, PV

I felt privileged this year to get a paper accepted into the technical track at DAC. It seems more and more difficult to get something through. I think they said they only had a 20% acceptance rate this year. I was glad to get to present this one because it was fun doing the experimentation for it and I think it helps answer one of the nagging questions I always get about eqDRC. I worked with Fedor … Read More

IC Verification, IC Design, DAC, Design Quality, Design for Manufacturing, Design Rules, DRC, Physical Verification, Design Rule Checking

Well, day two of DAC started a little earlier than the first day. I had to attend the speakers breakfast for the paper I was going to give later that day. However, after breakfast I had my 9am suite presentation on eqDRC again and I also had a special guest again. This time it was Robert Boone from Freescale in Austin, TX. He works in the DFM team and he also agreed to come tell everyone what he and … Read More

Reliability, IC Verification, Yield, Physical Verification, Design for Manufacturing, DAC, DRC, IC Design, Improvability, Design Rule Checking, Design Rules

Well it felt familiar to be back in San Francisco for DAC this year. However, I wasn’t ready for the cold. It was 100 degrees in Portland when I left and I always assume the Bay area will be warmer. Luckily I looked at the weather map before I finished packing and replaced my short sleeve shirts with long sleeve ones. I didn’t get in until late Sunday night so I only had time for a dinner in the Westin … Read More

IC Verification, IC Design, Yield, Design Quality, Design for Manufacturing, DAC, Design Rules, Leakage, DRC, Physical Verification, Design Rule Checking

In my last post I discussed the reasons and challenges associated with “waivers” for DRC.  As discused, this is becoming a bigger and bigger challenge as designs become more intricate and design rules become more complex.  To the poor design team that has the challenge of integrating IP from multiple sources into a single working design, this can become a nightmare to manage.  Not only is the DRC debug … Read More

Physical Verification, DRC, Calibre, DAC, Waivers

That is the question! If you read my colleague John’s most recent posting “Waive of the future?”, you will understand the question. I was equally shocked as John to find that almost no one tapes out DRC clean anymore. I would add one other reason to John’s list as to why this has happened. I think the traditional DRC rules are broken. Please read my first post “Are Design Rules Broken?” for my stance … Read More

IC Verification, IC Design, Design Quality, Design for Manufacturing, Design Rules, DRC, Physical Verification, Design Rule Checking

Many, many years ago, when I started in this business, I encountered something that I thought was surprising.  In my very first DRC benchmark, I was struggling with a particular rule.  The customer had given me a 0.25 micron layout, which they had successfully taped out.  My job was to write a rule file in the new tool to measure performance improvement.  My code matched the design rule manual and passed … Read More

IC Design, DRC

DAC is less than two months away… and the phone is starting to ring again…saying “We are doing demos and realize that we are showing Calibre everywhere. Do you want to participate in our demos?” Of course we do Our approach has always been to make Calibre available in every design tool and on every database. This approach is good for everyone.  Designs have to be certified “clean” (more on that in … Read More

DRC, IC, Calibre