New Request for Technology Addresses Advanced DRC and Electrical DFM Extensions

AUSTIN, Texas — (BUSINESS WIRE) — November 9, 2010 — The Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2) announced today that the members of its Design for Manufacturability Coalition (DFMC) have unanimously approved the first official release of the OpenDFM 1.0 standard. This is an open, high-level DRC language that can generate popular verification languages with no loss of accuracy or performance. OpenDFM utilizes a more compact notation for physical verification than traditional DRC rules; recent tests indicate it can reduce the volume of DRC rules by 5x-20x. OpenDFM describes verification intent for leading process nodes, including conditional rules and ranges of acceptable values. It leverages a plug-in architecture to automatically generate output decks. Advanced DFM checks are supported by utilizing DFM parameters and attributes defined by the DFMC members. It is expected that OpenDFM will achieve rapid adoption by all major EDA vendors, silicon foundries, and end-user companies.

At a recent conference in Santa Clara, Mark Mason, Director of Design Data Integration for Texas Instruments, commented that Texas Instruments has demonstrated coverage, performance and accuracy of OpenDFM 1.0, working with all major EDA vendors. No loss of performance versus native code was observed, and all vendors passed the OpenDFM test cases developed by TI and contributed to Si2. He also stated that he believed OpenDFM 1.0 is verified, and that TI intends to implement it into production as soon as possible. For details on his comments, see this link: http://www.si2.org/events_dir/2010/confall10/7.pdf

“The OpenDFM 1.0 standard has the potential to improve efficiency throughout the DRC process, from design rule manual development to rule coding and through to end user DRC interpretation,” said Anirudh Devgan, VP/General Manager of Magma’s Custom Design Business Unit. “The combination of the scalability of Magma’s Quartz DRC/LVS solution and this OpenDFM standard will provide users with significantly faster physical verification flows.”

"STARC has worked with DFMC since its inception and has contributed in areas such as Design Intent, and the DFM Dictionary," said Nobuyuki Nishiguchi, Vice President, General Manager, Development Department-1 at STARC. "The release of the OpenDFM V1.0 standard is a major milestone for the group. We expect that it will become an important part of the solution to contain the explosion in Design Rules that we face at advanced process nodes. We look forward to its rapid adoption in the industry."

The OpenDFM 1.0 standard, which is being made immediately available to the public at no charge, can be obtained at this link: https://www.si2.org/openeda.si2.org/project/showfiles.php?group_id=68. Members of the DFMC also have access to substantial adoption collateral, such as the OpenDFM parser source code, contributed test cases, tutorials, demonstration code, and more. To access this adoption collateral and to participate in the next phase of OpenDFM enhancements, please join the DFMC members; see this link for more information: http://www.si2.org/?page=491

The DFMC has also released a Request for Technology (RFT) seeking contributions that extend OpenDFM to unify additional DRC and DFM checks, such as in 2D pattern matching, 3D parasitic extraction, specialized reliability checks, edge operations, and targeting. Targeting refers to a new class of functions that more closely matches the on-silicon image to the desired target under varying process conditions, which is especially critical at 22nm and below. These new features are planned for the upcoming releases of OpenDFM. The RFT can viewed here: http://www.si2.org/?page=1284

“OpenDFM holds great promise to deliver compelling practical value to industry, regardless of design style or process node,” says Steve Schulz, President and CEO of Si2. “It is particularly gratifying to see all leading EDA vendors working together to create this important specification. Such cooperation is important in driving adoption, which is the primary goal of all Si2 standards activities.”

About the Design For Manufacturability Coalition (DFMC)

DFMC’s charter is to specify open standards for software interfaces between EDA software tools and manufacturing software. The specification includes standard terminology definitions, semantics and exchange formats for relevant manufacturing information. It also includes standard software application program interfaces (API) for models describing different manufacturing processes, yield mechanisms and circuit behaviors. Member companies include:Cadence Design Systems (NASDAQ: CDNS), GlobalFoundries, IBM (NYSE: IBM), Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), Magma Design Automation (NASDAQ: LAVA) , Mentor Graphics (NASDAQ: MENT), STARC, Synopsys (NASDAQ: SNPS), Tela Innovations, Inc., and Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN).

About Si2

Si2 is the largest organization of industry-leading semiconductor, systems, EDA and manufacturing companies focused on the development and adoption of standards to improve the way integrated circuits are designed and manufactured, in order to speed time-to market, reduce costs, and meet the challenges of sub-micron design. Now in its 23rd year, Si2 is uniquely positioned to enable timely collaboration through dedicated staff and a strong implementation focus driven by its member companies. Si2 represents over 100 companies involved in all parts of the silicon supply chain throughout the world. See www.si2.org

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Contact:

Silicon Integration Initiative
William Bayer, 512-342-2244, ext. 304
Senior Director, Marketing Communications