Universal DRC Rule Set for Multi-Metal Layout Compliance
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Solution Overview
Problem
The complexity of maintaining multiple metal schemes for design layouts in electronic design tools leads to a large set of design rule check (DRC) rule sets, making it difficult to ensure compliance across different schemes, and requires a unified approach for verification and dummy insertion.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for generating a common DRC rule set by evaluating and selecting the most restrictive design rule constraint values from multiple DRC rule sets, and creating a dummy insertion utility to insert polygons that satisfy these rules, ensuring compliance with the common DRC rule set and transforming designs across different metal schemes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple metal schemes are maintained for different design layouts, then design flexibility and adaptability are improved, but the complexity of maintaining multiple DRC rule sets increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal DRC rule set that can verify compliance across multiple metal schemes. The system generates a common set of design rules that works universally for different metal layer configurations, eliminating the need to maintain separate DRC rule sets for each metal scheme while preserving design flexibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent merges multiple DRC rule sets into a single common DRC rule set by identifying and consolidating overlapping design rules. The system combines rules from different metal schemes, removing redundancies and creating a unified verification framework that handles multiple metal configurations through one consolidated rule set.
2Device complexity
If a common DRC rule set is generated from multiple DRC rule sets, then verification complexity is reduced, but the restrictiveness of design constraints increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms multiple specific DRC rule sets into a common parameterized rule set. By abstracting design rules into universal parameters that can accommodate different metal schemes, the system reduces verification complexity while maintaining appropriate constraint restrictiveness through parameter adjustment rather than hard-coded values.
Solution Approach 2:
The common DRC rule set is designed to be dynamic and adaptable to different metal schemes. The system can adjust and customize the common rules based on specific metal layer configurations, allowing the verification process to remain simple while preserving the necessary constraint restrictiveness for each particular metal scheme through dynamic parameter assignment.
3Adaptability or versatility
If designers use different metal schemes for different layers, then design customization is improved, but compliance verification across schemes becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent develops a universal verification approach where a single common DRC rule set can verify compliance across all metal schemes. The system is designed to handle customized metal layer configurations while maintaining a unified verification mechanism, making compliance detection straightforward regardless of which metal schemes are used.
Data Source
AI summary
Among other things, one or more techniques and systems for generating a common design rule check (DRC) rule set for verification of a design layout and for generating a common dummy insertion utility for design layout processing are provided. That is, the common DRC rule set comprises a set of design rules having design rule constraint values corresponding to a restriction threshold, such as a most restrictive value. The common dummy insertion utility is used to insert dummy polygons into a design layout according to a dummy size constraint and a dummy spacing constraint. The design layout is verified as compliant with the common DRC rule set. Once verified, the design layout can be converted from a universal design layout format to a target metal scheme to create a transformed design layout. In this way, design layouts, formatted according to the universal design layout, can be transformed to other formats.