PHYSICAL DESIGN CHARACTERIZATION SYSTEM

• US 20040221250A1
• Filed: 06/18/2004
• Published: 11/04/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 04/23/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Marvell Asia Pte Limited (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Maynard, Daniel N., Pfeifer, Brian D., Wilcox, Reginald B. Jr., DeHond, Mitchell R., Bergman Reuter, Betty L., Reynolds, David C., Leipold, William C.
• Granted Patent: US 7,584,077 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 716/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/398 Design verification or optimisation, e.g. using design rule check [DRC], layout versus schematics [LVS] or finite element methods [FEM] optical proximity correction [OPC] design processes G03F1/36

Abstract

A system, method and media for locating and defining process sensitive sites isolated to specific geometries or shape configurations within chip design data. Once a systemic process sensitive site is identified, a 3D design checking deck is coded and executed through a design checker on physical design data. Target match shapes are produced and embedded back into the design data. Pictures, maps and coordinates of process sensitive sites are produced and sent to a website library for reference.

Claims

1. A physical design characterization system which comprises:

a release environment which comprise physical design data files;

a queuing system that controls what physical design data files are released to a 3D design checker;

a design check library which contains physical design structures of process sensitive regions from previously released devices;

a 3D design checker connected to the design check library and a runtime environment; and

a runtime environment which operates on the physical design data files using the 3D design check and produces target matches.

2. The physical design characterization system of claim 1 wherein the target matches are comprised of vectors or shapes inserted into the physical design data files.

3. The physical design characterization system of claim 2 which also comprises a graphics processing system which operates on the target matches.

4. The physical design characterization system of claim 2 which also comprises a web interface connected to graphic processing system which communicates the output of the graphics processing system.

5. The physical design characterization system of claim 3 wherein the graphics processing system collects and sorts the target matches by type.

6. The physical design characterization system of claim 3 wherein the graphics processing system converts the target matches into views.

7. The physical design characterization system of claim 3 wherein the graphics processing system convert the target matches into a format recognizable by analysis and processing equipment.

8. The physical design characterization system of claim 1 wherein the website interface provides for series of graphical pages for each target match of a particular type of target.