Third Generation DFM Flow: GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Mentor Graphics

Third Generation DFM Flow: GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Mentor Graphics
by Daniel Payne on 08-26-2011 at 11:17 am

calibre yield analyzer

Introduction
Mentor Graphics and GLOBALFOUNDRIES have been working together for several generations since the 65nm node on making IC designs yield higher. Michael Buehler-Garcia, director of Calibre Design SolutionsMarketing at Mentor Graphics spoke with me by phone today to explain how they are working with GLOBALFOUNDRIESRead More


20nm SoC Design

20nm SoC Design
by Paul McLellan on 08-25-2011 at 12:48 am

There are a large number of challenges at 20nm that didn’t exist at 45nm or even 32nm.

The biggest issues are in the lithography area. Until now it has been possible to make a reticle using advanced reticle enhacement technology (RET) decoration and have it print. Amazing when you think that at 45nm we are making 45nm features… Read More


Fast Track your SoC Design

Fast Track your SoC Design
by Paul McLellan on 08-17-2011 at 5:24 pm

Atrenta has four seminars coming up on SoC realization. More and more design is actually about finding IP and integrating it together at the block level, and then handing it off to a standard RTL to GDSII flow. The three focus areas are:

  • finding quality IP faster
  • accelerating IP integration and SoC assembly
  • handing off RTL successfully.
Read More

ANSYS Regional Conference

ANSYS Regional Conference
by Paul McLellan on 08-17-2011 at 3:15 pm

Next Tuesday, August 23rd, is the ANSYS Regional Conference for Silicon Valley. It takes place at the Techmart Network Meeting Center. Apache has three presentations during the day:

  • 9.25-9.45 Andrew Yang Introducing Apache Design Solutions
  • 11.00-11.30 Methodology for delivering power-efficient designs from concept to
Read More

Reducing SoC Power Consumption using Integrated Voltage Regulators

Reducing SoC Power Consumption using Integrated Voltage Regulators
by Daniel Nenni on 08-10-2011 at 5:00 pm

Last month I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Wonyoung Kim, a PhD candidate from Harvard University. Like many candidates, Wonyoung is shopping his thesis for capital in hopes of starting a semiconductor IP company. Here is a brief summary of the technology, please provide appropriate feedback and let’s see if we can get him… Read More


Sentinel-PSI Webinar

Sentinel-PSI Webinar
by Paul McLellan on 08-07-2011 at 3:28 pm

The last of the current series of webinars is on Sentinel-PSI,IC-Package, Power and Signal Integrity Solution. It will be at 11am Pacific time on Thursday 11th August. It will be conducted by Dr. Tao Su, product manager of the Sentinel products. Dr. Su has many years of experience in the EDA industry and is specialized in power integrity… Read More


August 11th – Hands-on Workshop with Calibre: DRC, LVS, DFM, xRC, ERC

August 11th – Hands-on Workshop with Calibre: DRC, LVS, DFM, xRC, ERC
by Daniel Payne on 08-06-2011 at 9:29 pm

I’ve blogged about the Calibre family of IC design tools before:

Smart Fill replaced Dummy Fill Approach in a DFM Flow
DRC Wiki
Graphical DRC vs Text-based DRC
Getting Real time Calibre DRC Results with Custom IC Editing
Transistor-level Electrical Rule Checking
Who Needs a 3D Field Solver for IC Design?
Prevention is BetterRead More


Assertion-based Formal Verification

Assertion-based Formal Verification
by Paul McLellan on 08-05-2011 at 5:34 pm

Formal verification has grown in importance as designs have grown and it has become necessary to face up to the theoretical impossibility of using simulation to get complete coverage along with the practical impossibility of simulating enough to even get close.

There are a number of solvers for what is called satisfiability (SAT)… Read More


Chip-Package-System Webinar

Chip-Package-System Webinar
by Paul McLellan on 08-05-2011 at 5:14 pm

The webinar on CPS (chip-package-system) is on Tuesday 9th August at 11am Pacific time. It will be conducted by Christopher Ortiz, Principal Application Engineer at Apache Design Solutions. Dr. Ortiz has been with Apache since 2007, supporting the Sentinel product line. Prior to Apache he worked at Agere / LSI, where he investigated… Read More


Smart Fill Replaces Dummy Fill Approach in a DFM Flow

Smart Fill Replaces Dummy Fill Approach in a DFM Flow
by Daniel Payne on 07-30-2011 at 7:11 pm

I met with Jeff Wilson, Product Marketing Manager at Mentor in the Calibre product group to learn more about Smart Fill versus Dummy Fill for DFM flows. Jeff works in the Wilsonville, Oregon office and we first meet at Silicon Compilers back in the 1990’s.

Dummy Fill

This diagram shows an IC layout layer on the left as originallyRead More