Collaboration helps customers optimise their designs

In addition, Mentor and GLOBALFOUNDRIES are working on the development of the Process Design Kit (PDK) for the 22FDX platform. The PDK includes support for the Mentor Calibre platform, covering design rule checking (DRC), layout vs. schematic (LVS) and metal fill solutions for 22FDX. These solutions help mutual customers optimise their designs using the capability of 22FDX technology to manage the power, performance and leakage.

In design flows for advanced technologies, RealTime Designer addresses the need for higher capacity, faster run-times, improved quality of results (QoR) and integrated floor planning capabilities. For 22FDX in particular, it offers support for multi-VDD designs based on the Unified Power Format (UPF), multi-Vt optimisation, leakage, dynamic power analysis and optimisation, and an RTL level floor planning technology for improved QoR and run-times.

The Olympus-SoC tool addresses the performance, capacity, time to market, power and variability challenges encountered at advanced technologies. Support for 22FDX includes low power capabilities such as multi-VDD flow, concurrent multi-corner multi-mode timing and power optimisation, forward and reverse bias handling, and DCAP cell insertion on power meshes for noise reduction.

“Our customers are designing some of the most complex chips for mobile, wireless, networking and graphics products,” said Pravin Madhani, general manager of the IC Implementation Group at Mentor Graphics. “Our collaboration with GLOBALFOUNDRIES will enable us to deliver advanced digital implementation flows for the 22FDX platform for our mutual customers.”

The Calibre nmDRC, Calibre nmLVS and Calibre YieldEnhancer tools provide the verification functionality available in the 22FDX PDK. Core DRC and LVS verification are provided by the Calibre nmDRC and Calibre nmLVS tools, respectively. Calibre YieldEnhancer with SmartFill helps designers meet planarity and density requirements, and minimise post-fill timing changes, by intelligently and automatically filling designs with the optimum distribution and placement of fill shapes.

The next release of the 22FDX PDK will place GLOBALFOUNDRIES differentiated DFM capabilities into the hands of designers. The industry leading DRC+, Manufacturing Analysis and Scoring (MAS), and Yield Enhancement Services (YES) design kit offerings from GLOBALFOUNDRIES, all based upon the Calibre platform, assist design teams in analysing the manufacturability impact of their design styles with the 22FDX process technology.

The DRC+ methodology uses fast pattern matching capabilities in the Calibre Pattern Matching tool to identify lithographically problematic patterns, then uses Calibre nmDRC to enforce tighter design constraints where those patterns occur. The MAS and YES methodologies help reduce manufacturing variability - MAS employs the DFM Scoring functionality in Calibre YieldAnalyzer to score IP blocks and SoCs across all layers - in the YES service, GLOBALFOUNDRIES engineers use the layout modification capabilities in Calibre YieldEnhancer to modify edges and via placements to improve the robustness of the layout.

“By incorporating the most advanced Calibre analysis and verification capabilities into its 22FDX platform, GLOBALFOUNDRIES is giving designers the tools they need to build robustness into their products,” said Joseph Sawicki, vice president, Design to Silicon Division at Mentor Graphics. “This not only ensures high quality designs are delivered for fabrication, but also will help ensure faster ramps to production.”

Mentor Graphics and GLOBALFOUNDRIES are working on supporting advanced extraction and reliability verification sign-off capabilities for Calibre xACT and Calibre PERC solutions.