From the prompt demands of semiconductor, the killer applications are handheld devices, wearable devices, automotive applications and the Internet of Things(IoT). Most ICs are manufactured beyond 65nm and even more advanced processes. Such a SoC may include multi-core CPU, application processors, communication IPs such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G or LTE and multi-type of sensors.
Layout Challenges
Such rapid increase of chip complexity results in the revolution of layout design. Not only the functionality and quality of a reliable product must be ensured, but also many ultra deep submicron (UDSM) effects can no longer be ignored any more. The understanding of analysis or simulation alone is not showing enough value. The future trend is the layout tool can have the capability of the intelligence beyond the ability of ordinary people to know how to judge and decision-making.
Thus, the layout engine must be powerful enough to produce high-quality layouts. This includes respect for the design requirements such as large scale layout size up to several hundred GB, debugging capabilities with clear and smart net tracing, critical area analysis and density control, edge effect analysis and pattern analyzer of big data of wafer map. All the layout requirements must be fulfilled in a unified, friendly and hyper performance environment to deliver high yield and time-to-market layouts.
A Complete Solution with Thunder
To overcome the layout challenges, Thunder provides an intelligent and a complete layout solution which has Hybrid Design Database (DDB) and Defect Knowledge Database(DKDB) with data mining technologies, accelerator, optimizer and analysis engines. The technologies are Big Data Analyzer for defect analysis, Performance Accelerator for large layout size and performance issues, Dummy Fill Optimizer for non-uniform density issues, and De-duplicated Merge to reduce the file size of the redundant cells when performing IP merge. With these technologies, Thunder can handle design capacity up to 500GB+ and provide the full SoC manipulation abilities with industry-leading performance.
Early Warning of Potential Defects with Big Data Analyzer
To dig out the potential wafer defects, Thunder provides a powerful mechanism to automatically identify the defect signatures from KLARF. Thunder contains a Defect Knowledge Database (DKDB) and a robust Big Data Analyzer that can automatically compare the design data in DDB to the defect signatures in DKDB to know whether the wafer with the defect patterns or not . With Defect Extraction technology, engineers can visualize in a more trivial way ; the Big Data Analysis Engine allow the defect engineers to generate and manage their own pattern library and set the threshold to notify them when the results of Statistical Monitor exceed the threshold. This engine is also helpful for engineers to optimize parameter settings or fine tune the analysis sequence to gain the better improvement of yield.
Hyper Performance Import for High Capacity Design with Direct Import Technology
Most layout tools save the layout to the disk when importing it at the first time. Anaglobe's professional designers find that saving layout designs to disk when importing does result in the performance bottleneck and even the hanging process sometimes. To break through the bottleneck, Thunder saves and runs it in the main memory directly instead of saving it back to the disk when layout files are imported. With the direct import technology, the layout size that Thunder can import is over 500GB+ which is the biggest one over all current layout tools!
LVL Performance Accelerator with Layout Analysis Engine
Instead of comparing each layout one by one for LVL comparison, Thunder provides the fastest performance of LVL comparison, linear to data size, to quickly identify the differences between two designs. The intelligent layout analysis engine has the ability to quickly differentiate whether two blocks are possible to be the same or not. When they are not, further detail comparison will be no longer processed.
Uniform Layout Density Distribution with Dummy Fill Optimizer
Non-uniform density will degrade analog circuit performance and impact the yield. It needs intelligent methodology to check the critical area and generate the dummy cells accordingly. Thunder provides a density map generation, violation checking and rule based dummy metal fill insertion to resolve the density issue completely. Beyond other tools, small region can be done as well. For dummy fill insertion, it can insert a uniform and regular metal pattern to low density area according to the target percentage interactively and creates vertical or horizontal patterns with offset.
Comprehensive Debugging with 3D Visualization
Thunder's powerful 3D net tracer provides both tracing and highlight problematic nets with 3D visualization. It supports both location based and pin text based tracing. 3D View is not only for net, but also for finFET or Cut Layers.
Consolidate IP Merge with De-duplicated Merge Technology
When merging IPs, Thunder has a very smart mechanism, De-duplicated Merge Technology, to detect and remove the redundant layouts of cells. The power of De-duplicated Technology is to use LVL comparison during the merging process to know whether the layouts of the cells are exactly the same or not. When they are the same, only one layout will be kept in the design and other cells will be renamed. That's the way for Thunder to consolidate the design. The merge results are also very impressive to the layout designers. The best case is 60% GDS size can be saved!
Conclusion
Working in Thunder's environment allows you to start from the layout prototyping, IP merge and yield improvement in one unified platform. Intuitive GUI and 3D layout view enables the efficiency of debugging. Thunder also can communicate with the third party tools and provide big data analysis for wafer inspection results. Uniform layout density distribution and dummy fill insertion in critical area also can be done automatically and intelligently. In short, Thunder is a total and an optimized customization layout solution which does address to resolve all deep submicron layout issues and can increase 30X+~50X+ productivity! Thunder – provided by AnaGlobe (http://www.anaglobe.com)
A complete solution with Thunder
Early warning of potential defects with Big Data Analyzer
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