Synopsys IC Validator at DAC

Intro
At DAC last week I visited the Synopsys demo suite to see what's new with IC Validator.

Notes
Stelios Diamantidis, PMM
- In-design physical verification
- Sign-off reveals thousands of late stage DRC violations
- 28nm has 1.5K rules, 15K runset sizes
- Metal Fill changes timing
- The DRM can be changed throughout the life of the process

Timing Closure – can be too slow, too many iterations, too time consuming
- A new methodology is needed

IC Validator – verify as you go, early, not at the end of routing
- Run during: Floorplan, P/G, Placement, CTS, final route

In-Design PV: Metal Fill
- Foundry runset used by IC Compiler
- Evaluate timing of critical nets, timing aware metal fill
- Automate ECO process, identify shorts, push route out, comply to DRC rules
- Example of timing driven metal fill evaluation
o Renesas: 6X faster TAT using ICV with ICC
o AMD: 30 minutes to complete Metal Fill, 580K nets

In-Design PV: Signoff DRC
- Incremental Checking (analysis by Layer, Area or rule)
- GDS Merge – remove cell boundaries (full mask checking on demand)
- Automatic DRC Repair (highly localized, router driven), router told where to correct violations
- ST: Used the flow to find and fix 340 violations in just 35 minutes
- TI: Up to 100% auto fix rate , Automatic DRC Repair (ADR)

Smart Error Management
- Milkyway Intgration (direct access to properties)
- Error categorization (automatic linking of violations)
- Interactive filtering (querying or sorting of violations)

Chris Grossman – Corporate AE
Demo of IC Validator, live
- Start with IC Compiler, DRC checking shows 20,330 violations
- Stepping through each DRC violation graphically, decide how to fix DRV violations with scripting or manual efforts
- Another way is to use ICV (DRC checking) inside of ICC (P&R)
- Results of DRC checking shows only 3926 violations, not 20,330 at the end of detailed P&R
o Filter the DRC violations: P/G Nets, Clock Nets, Signal Routes, User Routes
o Re-run just one rule at a time, re-run rules in one rectangular area at a time
o You can leave the floorplanning stage knowing that you are DRC clean
o After checking DRC after PG, it’s time to run DRC after Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS)
o Now only 16 DRC violations found (Found a RAM placement too close to a VDD)
o Run MergeGDS to see where this RAM instance has a DRC violation
o After CTS time to run detailed routing, found only 143 DRC violations now

Summary
- Run In-Design PV at each stage of physical design, not at the end of detailed routing
- In-design physical verification saves weeks of time over the old implement then verify approach
- IC Validator: pre-routing checks, routing checking, automatic repair, timing aware repair
o Next release: 1.5X faster DRC runs, 1.5X smaller fill size, 3X less fill memory
o 20nm: double patterning required, native DPT coloring engine, In-Design decomposition checking
o Equation-based DRC
o Debug Productivity: will have a new LVS graphical schematic viewer, LVS equivalent error browser, graphical runset debugger
o Advanced Nodes: fill-to-target (correct by construction), pattern matching (Prevents manufacturing limiting layout patterns)

ICC - Has 60% market share in P&R