ASIC Physical Design

SmartPlay Overview
“To be a leading service provider of End to End Solutions
enabled by Innovative Business Models that provide Value,
Quality and Execution excellence to our Customers”

Semiconductor

Digital Analog Wireless Software System Design

World-wide Sales

Common Support Functions (HR/Staffing/Ops/Finance)

Common Infrastructure
2
SmartPlay Confidential
 Outline
• ASIC Design Flow
• Physical Design
— Introduction to Physical Design
— Physical Design Inputs
— Physical Design Flow
▫ Import Design & Partitioning
▫ Floorplanning & Power planning
▫ Placement & Placement Optimizations
▫ CTS & CTS Optimizations
▫ Routing & Routing Optimizations
▫ Physical Verification (DRC, LVS, ERC)
▫ DFM Checks
▫ Formal Verification (LEC)
▫ Parasitic Extraction (RC Extraction)
▫ Timing Analysis (STA), Power Analysis & IR Drop Analysis
▫ Tapeout 3
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
ASIC Design Flow
Partitioning
System Specification
Floor Planning
ENTITY test is Architectural Design
port a: in bit;
end ENTITY test; RTL Design Placement
and Verification
F F F F F F
F F F F F F
Synthesize the F F F F F F CTS
Design F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F
F

Placement & Routing

PHYSICAL Routing
DRC DESIGN
LVS Signoff Parasitic Extraction
ERC
Mask Preparation
Physical Verification

Fabrication
Formal Verification

Packaging and
Testing Static Timing Analysis

Chip Power Analysis

IR-Drop Analysis 4
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Design Introduction
• Structural Representation to Physical Implementation
i.e., Netlist to GDSII Partitioning
• Stages Floor Planning
— Placement and Routing (PnR) Power Planning
— Signoff
Placement PnR
• Objectives
Clock Tree Synthesis
— Timing
Signal Routing
— Congestion
— Area
Parasitic Physical Formal
— Power Extraction Verification Verification

• Possible Issues
Static Timing
— Timing Violations Analysis Signoff
— Congestion Issues Power, IR-Drop
Analysis
— Design Rule Violations
Tape-out
5
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Design Inputs
• Netlist (.v or .vhd)
— Netlist contains — Netlist also consists of
 Std. Cell instance – Name & Drive  Ports of Standard Cells and Macros
Strength  Interconnection details
 Macros & Memories instances
• Constraints
— Types of Constraints — Synopsys Design Constraints
 Design Rule Constraints (SDC)
 Optimization Constraints — Timing Constraints
— Design Rules from the Fab.  Clock Definition (Time Period, Duty
 Max. Cap./ Transition/Fanout Cycle)
 Clock Uncertainties  Timing Exceptions (False Paths,
Asynchronous Paths)
— Optimization Constraints from the
designer — Non-Timing Constraints
 Timing Constraints/ Exceptions  Operating conditions
 Delay Constraints (Latency, Input Delay,  Wire load models
Input Transition, Output Load and  System interface, Design rule constraints
Output Transition) (DRVs - Max. Cap./ Transition/Fanout)
 Power and Area Constraints  Area constraints, Multi-voltage and
 System interface Power optimization constraints
SmartPlay Confidential
 Logic assignments 6
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Design Inputs
• Liberty Timing File
(.lib or .db) — LIB contains
Cell Type and Functionality
— Cell Logical View/ The Timing 
 Delay Models (WLD/ NLDM/ CCS)
Library
 Pin/ Cell Timings and design rules
— Std. Cell lib, Macro lib, IO lib  PVT Conditions
— Gate Delay = function of input  Power Details (Leakage and
transition time and output Dynamic)
capacitance
• Library Exchange Format
(LEF)
— LEF contains
— Cell Abstract View/ The Physical  Cell Name, Shape, Size, Orientation
Library & Class
— Std. Cell LEF  Port/Pin Name, Direction and Layout
Geometries
— Macro LEF  Obstruction/ Blockages
— IO LEF  Antenna Diff. Area

7
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Design Inputs
• Technology Related files
— Technology file — Interconnect Parasitic file
 Defines Units and Design Rules for  Used for layer parasitic extraction
Layers and Vias as per the Technology  Contains Layer/ Via capacitance and
 Name and Number conventions of resistance values in a Lookup Table
Layers and Vias (LUT) format
 Physical and Electrical parameters of  Also used to generate parasitic formats
Layers and Vias for the extraction tools (e.g. nxtgrd,
 E.g. captbl)
Direction/Type/Pitch/Width/Offset/  Extraction tool formats are more
Thickness/Resistance/Capacitance/ accurate than interconnect parasitic
Max. Metal Density/Antenna Rule/ formats
Blockages/Design Rules  .ict - Interconnect Technology Format
 Manufacturing Grid definition (Cadence Format)
 Site/Unit Tile definition  .itf - Interconnect Technology Format
 Technology file has to load before (Synopsys Format)
loading other LEF files since it holds  .ptf - Process Technology File (Mentor
the layer information for that Graphics Format)
particular technology
 .tech.lef (Cadence Format) — Map file
 .tf - technology file (Synopsys Format)  Useful if is there is 2 different naming
convections in Technology file, LEF or
Interconnect Parasitic file

8
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Design Inputs
• Power Specification File • Clock Tree Constraints/
— Power Modes & Power Domains Specification
— Tie Up supply & Tie Low supply — Root Pin Definition
— Power Nets & GND Nets — Insertion Delay (ID) and Skew Target
— Maximum Capacitance/ Transition/
• Optimization Directives Fanout (DRVs)
— Don’t use — Transition can be classified into Leaf
• Cells that are not supposed to Transition and Buffer Transition
optimize — No. of Buffer Levels (Tree depth)
— Size only/ use only — List of Buffers/ Inverters for CTS
• Upsizing/ Downsizing only with — List of Through pin, Preserved Pin,
this list of cells Exclude Pin
— NDRs can be defined in CTS Spec. for
• Design Exchange Formats the Clock Tree Routing
— List & locations of Components, Vias, — Macro Models
Pins, Nets, Special nets
— Die dimensions, Row definitions, • IO Information File
Placement and Bounding Box Data, — Pin/ Pad locations
Routing Grids, Power Grids, Pre-routes — Edge and order for IO Placement
— .def, .fp are the common formats — .tdf, .io are common formats 9
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Design Flow

Import Design, Floor Planning, Pre-Placement,

Partitioning
Sanity Checks Power Planning Placement

Clock Tree
Routing Post-CTS Opt. Pre-CTS Opt.
Synthesis (CTS)

Post-Routing Physical Formal Parasitic

Opt. Verification Verification Extraction

Static Timing
Tape-out IR-Drop Analysis Power Analysis
Analysis

10
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Import Design
• Import Design
— The following input files information are loaded to the PnR tool
• Netlist (.v/ .vhd/ .edif)
• Physical Libraries (.lef)
• Timing Libraries (.lib)
• Technology Files
• Constraints (.sdc)
• IO Info. File (optional)
• Power Spec. File (optional)
• Optimization Directives (optional)
• Clock Tree Spec. File (optional at floorplan stage)
• DEF/ FP (optional if floorplan is not done)
— Core area is approximately calculated by the tool from the Netlist
— While Importing, first we have to load the LEF files and then LIB files

11
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Import Design
• Sanity Checks
— Sanity Checks mainly checks the quality of netlist in terms of timing
— It also consists of checking the issues related to Library files, Timing
Constraints, IOs and Optimization Directives
— Some of the Netlist Sanity Checks:
 Floating Pins
 Unconstrained Pins
 Un-driven i/p Ports
 Unloaded o/p Ports
 Pin direction mismatches
 Multiple drivers etc.
— Other possible issues include Unconnected/ Wrongly Connected Tie-
high/ Tie-low Pins and Power Pins (since Tie-up or Tie-down
connectivity always through Tie-Cells)

12
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Partitioning
• Physical Design Netlist
— All Ports must be defined and should be present
— No Assignment Statements (1’b0 or 1’b1 statements): Assignment
statements causes feed-through (i/p directly to o/p) and can be
avoided by adding buffers
— No Unmapped Cells
— No Combinational Timing Loops
• Styles of Implementation
— Flat
 Small to Medium ASIC
 Better Area Usage Since no reserve space around each sub-design for power/ground
— Hierarchical
 For very large design
 When sub-systems are design individually
 Possible only if a design hierarchy exist

13
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Partitioning
• The Hierarchical Partitioning is done prior to Floorplan
• Partition can be done based on
— Design Hierarchy
— Timing Criticality
— Functionality
— Clock Domain
— Design Files
— Block Size
• Partitioning Inputs and
Outputs by Registers
• Minimize Cross-Partition-
Boundary IO
• For Sub-block designs, the Partitioning is not required
• For Full Chip only we need to design with Partitioning
14
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Floorplanning
• Terminologies and Definitions
— Utilization
 Area of the core that is used by placed Standard Cells and Macros expressed in
percentage
— Manufacturing Grid
 The smallest geometry that semiconductor foundry can process or smallest
resolution of your technology process (e.g. 0.005)
 All drawn geometries during Physical Design must snap to this grid
 While Masking fab. use this as reference lines
— Standard Cell Site/ Standard Cell Placement Tile/ Unit Tile
 The minimum Width and Height a Cell that can occupy in the design
 The Standard Cell Site will have the same height as Standard Cells, but the width
will be as small as your smallest Filler Cell
 It’s one Vertical Routing Track and the Standard Cell Height
 All Standard Cells must be multiple of Unit Tile
— Standard Cell Rows
 Rows are actually the Standard Cell Sites abut side by side and then Standard Cells
are placed on these Rows
SmartPlay Confidential
 Cells with the equal no. of Track definition will have same height 15
 ASIC Physical Design
Floorplanning
• Terminologies and Definitions
— Placement Grid
 Placement Grid is made up of Standard Cell Site
 Its always a multiple of Manufacturing Grid
 Placement Grid is made up of the Rows which are composed of Sites
— Routing Grid and Routing Track
 Horizontal and Vertical line drawn on the layout area which will guide for making
interconnections
 The Routing Grid is made up of the Routing Tracks
 Routing Tracks can be Grid-based, Gridless based or Subgrid-based
— Flight-line/ Fly-line
 Virtual connection between Macros and Macro or Macros and IOs
— Macro
 Any instances other than Standard Cell and is as loaded as black box to the
design is Macro
 Intellectual Property (IP) e.g. RAM, ROM, PLL, Analog Designs etc.
 Hard Macro: IP with Layout implemented
 Soft Macro: IP without Layout implemented (HDL)
16
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Floorplanning
• Steps in Floorplan
— Initialize with Chip & Core Aspect Ratio (AR)
— Initialize with Core Utilization
— Initialize Row Configuration & Cell Orientation
— Provide the Core to Pad/ IO spacing (Core to IO clearance)
— Pins/ Pads Placement
— Macro Placement by Fly-line Analysis
— Macro Placement requirements are also need to consider
— Blockage Management (Placement/ Routing)

17
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Floorplanning
• Initialization
— Row Configuration
 Slanting lines in the side of the cell rows denote the Cell Orientation

Most common because of better

space utilization

— Core to Pad/ IO spacing

 Core to IO clearance
 Used for Placing IOs and Power Ring

18
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Floorplanning
• Initialization
𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓 𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒 𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂 𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀+𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌 𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀
— Utilization = x 100 %
𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓 𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂 𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀
𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇𝐇 𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑 𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑
— Aspect Ratio = =
𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕 𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑 𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑
— or simply Height/Width
— Aspect Ratio decides the shape
— Full chip Aspect Ratio can have a maximum value of 1.25

19
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Floorplanning
• IO Placement
— Chip Level its IO Pads and Block Level its IO Pins
— Pin is a logical entity and is a property of a Port
— Port is a physical entity and a Port have only 1 Pin associated with it
— Netlist will have Pins and Layout will have Ports
— Unplaced Port is not
represented in the Layout
— Different types of IOs
 Signal Pads/Pins
 Core Power Pads/Pins
 IO Power Pads/Pins
 Corner Pads (Doesn’t hold
any logic, provides IO Pad
Ring connectivity)
 Filler Pads (Fill the gaps between IO pads to get the Ring Connectivity)
— Physical-only pads that are not part of the input Gate level Netlist need
SmartPlay Confidential
to be inserted prior to reading IO constraints 20
 ASIC Physical Design
Floorplanning
• IO Placement
— IO Pads enables the design to operate at different voltages with the
help of Level Shifters, Pre-Drivers (at Core Voltage) Post-Drivers (at IO
Voltage)
— No of Core Power Pads needed:
𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓 𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃 𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏
𝐍𝐍𝐍𝐍.𝐨𝐨𝐨𝐨 𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒 x 𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂 𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕 x 𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌 𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐚 𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂 𝐨𝐨𝐨𝐨 𝐈𝐈𝐈𝐈 𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏

— There will be 1 Core GND Pad along with every Core Power Pad

— No. of IO Power Pads needed:

𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓 𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑: 𝟏𝟏 𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩 𝐨𝐨𝐨𝐨 𝐈𝐈𝐈𝐈 𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏 𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏 𝐟𝐟𝐟𝐟𝐟𝐟 𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞 𝟒𝟒 𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭 𝟔𝟔 𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒 𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏

21
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Floorplanning
• Macro Placement
— Fly-line Analysis (For Connectivity information)
— Macro keep-out (For Uniform Standard Cell Region)
— Channel Calculation (Critical for Congestion and Timing)
— Avoid odd shaped area for Standard Cells
— Funnel shaped Macro Placements are preferred
— Fix the Macro locations, so that tool wont alter during Optimization
— Spacing between Macro:
𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏 𝐨𝐨𝐨𝐨 𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭 𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑 𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋 x 𝐍𝐍𝐍𝐍.𝐨𝐨𝐨𝐨 𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩 𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭 𝐛𝐛𝐛𝐛 𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑 𝐁𝐁𝐁𝐁𝐁𝐁𝐁𝐁𝐁𝐁𝐁𝐁
+ S𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩
𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀 𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑 𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋 𝐢𝐢𝐢𝐢 𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭 𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩 𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝𝐝

22
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Floorplanning
• Macro Placement Tips
— Place macros around chip periphery, so that core area will be clustered
— Consider connections to fixed cells when placing Macros
— In advanced Technology Nodes Macro Orientation is fixed since the Poly
Orientation can’t vary, so there will be restrictions in Macro Orientation
— Reserve enough room around Macros for IO Routing
— Reduce open fields as much as possible
— Provide necessary Blockages around the Macro

23
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Floorplanning
• Blockages
— Placement Blockage & Routing Blockage Rectilinear
Macro
— Both of the Blockages can again be classified as- Without
• Hard, Soft and Partial Blockages Blockage
— Hard Blockage
• Complete Standard Cell Blockage
— Soft Blockage With
• Non-Buffering Blockage Blockage

— Partial Blockage
• Partial Standard Cell Blockage and is used to
avoid congestion
• We can Block Standard Cells as per the required
percentage value
— Keep-out/ Halo Macro
• Halo is similar to Soft Blockage (Terminology in Cadence EDI)
• Its basically a keep-out Macro margin
• Halo respects Macro while other Blockages respect location Halo around Macro
i.e., even if Macro is moved Halo also moves along with it 24
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Floorplanning
• Issues arises due to bad Floorplan
— Congestion near Macro Pins/ Corners due to insufficient Placement
Blockage
— Std. Cell placement in narrow channels led to Congestion
— Macros of same partition which are placed far apart can cause Timing
Violation

SmartPlay Confidential Floorplan with 1 Macro 25

 ASIC Physical Design
Power planning
• Power Plan
— To connect Power to the Chip by considering issues like EM and IR Drop
— Power Routing also called Pre-Routing
— Pre-Routing includes creating Power Ring, Stripes/Mesh/Grid, and
Standard Cell Power Rails
— Power Planning also includes Power Via insertion
— IO Rings are established through IO Cell abutment and through IO Filler
Cells
— Power Trunks are constructed between Core Power Ring and Power
Pads
— Trunk is a piece of metal that connects IO Pad and Core Ring
— Technical information required for Power Planning:
 Total Dynamic Power info. will get from Compiler
 Technology File will provide Current Density (JMAX)
 LEF will prove the Metal Layer width
 Technology Library will provide Core Voltage
26
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Power planning
• Levels of Power Distribution
• Rings
— VDD and VSS Rings are formed around the Core and Macro
• Stripes
— Carries VDD and VSS around the chip
— Carries VDD and VSS from Rings across the chip
— Power Stripes are created in the Core Area to tap power from Core Rings to
the core area
• Rails (Special Route)
— Connect VDD and VSS to the standard cell
— Standard Cell Rails are created to tap power from Power Stripes to Std. Cell
Power/Ground Pins
• Power Vias
— Insert all Power Vias between Ring & Grid, Grid & Rail and Vertical Grid &
Horizontal Grid
• Trunks
— Connects Ring to Power Pad

27
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Power planning
• Power Plan: Calculations
 Total Dynamic Core Current =
𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓 𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃 𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂 𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏𝐏
𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂 𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕𝐕

 Pad to Core Trunk Width =

𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓 𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃 𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂 𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂
𝐍𝐍𝐍𝐍. 𝐨𝐨𝐨𝐨 𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬 𝐱𝐱 𝐉𝐉𝐉𝐉𝐉𝐉𝐉𝐉 𝐱𝐱 𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂 𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒 𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩 𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬

 Core Ring Width =

𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓𝐓 𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃𝐃 𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂 𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂
𝟐𝟐 𝐱𝐱 𝐍𝐍𝐍𝐍. 𝐨𝐨𝐨𝐨 𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬 𝐱𝐱 𝐉𝐉𝐉𝐉𝐉𝐉𝐉𝐉 𝐨𝐨𝐨𝐨 𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭 𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌𝐌 𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋𝐋 𝐟𝐟𝐟𝐟𝐟𝐟 𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑𝐑 𝐱𝐱 𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂 𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒 𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩𝐩 𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬𝐬

 Power Stripes Spacing =

𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂𝐂 𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖 − ( 𝐍𝐍𝐍𝐍. 𝐨𝐨𝐨𝐨 𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒 𝐱𝐱 𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖𝐖 𝐨𝐨𝐨𝐨 𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭𝐭 𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒)
𝐍𝐍𝐍𝐍. 𝐨𝐨𝐨𝐨 𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒𝐒 + 𝟏𝟏

28
SmartPlay Confidential Courtesy: asic-soc.blogspot.in
 ASIC Physical Design
Power planning
• Sub-block Configuration
Grid Offset

Grid Steps
Core Boundary

Grid Spacing
Chip Boundary
Ring Width

Core Area
Ring Spacing
Rails

Horizontal Horizontal Vertical Vertical

Core Ring Stripes Stripes Core Ring

29
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Power planning
• Full Chip Configuration

• Save Floorplan (.def / .fp) 30

SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Pre-Placement
• Physical-Only Cells (Well Taps, End Caps)
— These library cells do not have signal connectivity and connect only to the power
and ground rails
— End Caps ensure that gaps do not occur between the Well and Implant Layers and
also prevents DRC violations by satisfying Well tie-off requirements for core rows
— Well Taps help to tie Substrate and N-wells to VDD and VSS levels and thus prevent
Latch-up

• Special Cells (Spare cells, Decap Cells)

— Spare Cells for ECO and Decaps for avoiding Instantaneous Voltage Drop (IVD)
— Place Decaps closer to Power Pads or any larger Drivers
• Cell Padding
— Cell Padding is done to reserve space for avoiding Routing Congestion
— Cell Padding adds Hard Constraints to Placement
— The Constraints are honored by Cell, Legalization, CTS, and Timing Optimization
31
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Pre-Placement Optimization
• Pre-Placement Optimization Goals
— Routability
— Performance (Timing)
— Power (with Cells)
• Optimizations before Placement
— Delay models must be removed (if any)
— Zero-RC (0-RC) Optimization
— Isolation Cell Insertion
— Multi Corner Multi Mode (MCMM) settings before Std. Cell Placement
• Zero-RC Optimization
— Optimizes the netlist without any delay models, thus provides an optimal
starting point for placement
— Timing during 0-RC Opt and that of during Synthesis has to be matched
— Else indicate problems in the Technology File, Timing Library, Constraint Files,
or overall design
— Logical restructuring and up/down size are optimizations at the 0-RC stage
• Take care of don’t use cells while doing optimization
SmartPlay Confidential
32
 ASIC Physical Design
Placement
• Automated Standard Cell Placement for placing the Standard
Cells in Placement Tracks
• Placement Objectives
— Total wire length I/O
— Routability Placed Pads
— Performance Standard
— Power Cells
— Heat distribution
• Timing checks only with
slow corners at Placement
stage
• Only Setup Time check, since Macros
Chip view after Placement
buffers are getting added during
Clock Tree Synthesis
33
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Placement
• Placement Methods
— Timing Driven Placement
 To Refine placement based on congestion, timing and power
 To optimize large sets of path delays
 Net Based
— Congestion Driven Placement
 To distance standard cell instances from each other such that more routing
tracks are created between them
• Control the delay on signal path by imposing an upper bound
delay or weight to net

34
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Placement
• Placement Stages
— Global Placement
— Detail Placement
— Placement Legalization
— In-Place Optimizations
• Global/ Coarse Placement
— To get the approximate initial location Global/ Coarse Placement
— Cells are not legally placed and there
can be overlapping
• Detail/ Legal Placement
— To avoid cell overlapping
— Cells have legalized locations
— Legalize placement will place the cells
in their legal position with no overlap
Detail/ Legal Placement
35
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Placement
• Placement Legalization
— Placed Macros are legally oriented with Standard Cell Rows
• In-Place Optimizations
— Scan Chain Reordering
• After Placement, report Congestion, Utilization and Timing
• Tie off cell instances provide connectivity between the Tie-
high and Tie-low logical inputs pins of the Netlist instances to
Power and Ground
• Tie off cells are placed after the placement of Standard Cells
• After placement check the Cell Density
• Global Route (GR)
— Whole region is divided into an array of rectangular sub-regions each of which
may accommodate tens of routing tracks in each dimension called Global Cells
— Global Route is performed to estimate the inter-connect parasitics and
Routing Congestion Map 36
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Pre CTS Optimization/ Placement Opt.
• Cell Sizing
— Sized up/ down to meet optimizing for timing and area
— Up sizing will give timing advantage and Down sizing will give area advantage
• VT Swapping
— To optimize for leakage power (HVT, RVT/SVT, LVT)
• Cloning
— To reduce fanout
• Buffering
— Long nets are buffered or remove buffers to bring the timing advantage
• Re-Buffering
— To improve slews, reduce net capacitance and reduce fanout
• Logical Restructuring
— To optimize timing and area without changing the functionality of the design
— Breaking complex cells into simpler cells or vice versa
• Pin Swapping 37
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Pre CTS Optimization/ Placement Opt.
• Optimization Techniques
- Resizing - Cloning - Buffering
d 0.2 d 0.2
a d 0.2 e 0.2 e 0.2
? e 0.2 a a f
b f 0.2 ? 0.2
f 0.3 b ? b g 0.2
g 0.2
h 0.2 h 0.2

a a d
b A b C A d 0.2
0.035 0.026 e
f e 0.2
a a
B g B f 0.2
b h b B g 0.2
0.1
h 0.2

- Redesign Fan-in Tree

Arr(a)=4 a
1 a e
Arr(b)=3 b b 1
1 Arr(e)=5
1 e c
Arr(c)=1 c Arr(e)=6 1
1 d Longest Path = 4
Arr(d)=0 d Longest Path = 5 Slowdown of buffer due to load
38
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Pre CTS Optimization/ Placement Opt.
• Timing Optimization Techniques
- Decomposition

- Swap Commutative Pins

1 1
0 2
a c
1 5 1
1 1 3
b 1 b 1
2 c 0
a
2

39
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Pre CTS Optimization
• Set the Optimization Directives
— don’t_use, size_only
• Perform High Fanout Nets Synthesize (HFNS)
— High Fanout Nets are Synthesized before Clock Tree Synthesis
— HFNS is the Buffering of High Fanout Nets
— Usually High Fanout Nets may have Fanout of more than 1000
Eg., Reset, Clear etc.
• Set CTS Routing Rules
— Shielding
— Non Default Rules (NDR)
• Set RC Delay Models

40
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Pre CTS Optimization
• Non-Default Rule (NDR)
— The user-defined Routing rules apart from the default Routing Rule
— Often used to “harden” the sensitive nets like Clock Nets
— NDRs make the Clock Routes less sensitive to CrossTalk or EM effects
— Double/ Triple Width for avoiding Electromigration
— Double/ Triple Spacing for avoiding Crosstalk
— NDRs will improve Insertion Delay
Sig1
Default Clk
Routing Rule Sig2

Sig1
Double Spacing
Gnd

NDR Route Clk Double Width

on Clock net Ground
Gnd
Shielding
Sig2
41
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS)
• The Clock Problem
— Clock skew
— Long clock insertion delay
— Skew across clocks
— Heavy clock net loading
— Clock is power hungry
— Clock to signal coupling effect (CrossTalk)
— Electromigration on clock net
• Clock Tree is a path from the Clock Source (Root) to Clock Sinks
(Leaf)
• Clock Tree Synthesis is the process of creating this Clock Path
from Clock Source to Clock Sinks
• All Clock pins of flip Flop are considered as Clock Sinks (Leaf);
where the Clock Tree Synthesis ends
42
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS)
Before CTS Clock Source

FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF

After CTS Clock Source

FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
43
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS)
• Main concerns for Clock Design
— Skew
 Most important concern for clock networks
 For increased clock frequency, skew may contribute over 10% of the system cycle
time
 Due to variations in trace length, metal width and height, coupling caps
 It can also be due to variations in local clock load, local power supply, local gate
length and threshold, local temperature
— Power
 Very important, as clock is a major
power consumer Clock
 It switches at every clock cycle
— Noise
 Clock is often a very strong aggressor
 May need shielding
— Delay
 Not really important
 But Slew Rate is important
(sharp transition)
44
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS)
• Clock Skew: Spatial Clock Variation

Clock Skew
Difference in clock
arrival time at two
spatially distinct points

A A
Compressed timing
path
B

Skew

45
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS)
• Clock Jitter: Temporal Clock Variation
Compressed timing
path

Period A ≠ Period B
Clock Jitter
Difference in clock
period over time

46
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS)
• CTS Pre-requisites
— Legally Placed and Optimized with acceptable Congestion
— Timing should be good
— No Design Rule Violations
— Power/Ground nets are pre-routed
— HFNS done
— Logical/Physical Library should have special Clock Cells

• CTS Objects
— The timer starts from every Clock Source and traces forward over Combinational Arcs
until it reaches the Clock Pin of a flop or another Clock Source
— All Pins/ Timing Arcs in the forward trace before a valid Leaf are considered to be in
the clock network
— Pin or Combinational Timing Arcs that trace to a non-clock pin are not part of Clock
Tree network (e.g. D pin of FF)
— Sequential elements are traced through if it is a source of the Generated Clock
— Clock tracing after the propagation of Case Analysis
— Clock tracing should be Mode aware
— Inverters are added in Clock Tree for better Duty Cycle
— Limit the buffer/inverter list to just 3 or 4 buf/inv sizes
47
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS)
• CTS Flow
— Check and fix Macro locations
— Read CTS SDC: Clock Tree begins at SDC defined clock pin and
ends at stop pin of the flop
— Generate CTS Specification file Example of CTS spec file
 Max. Skew AutoCTSRootPin SH1/I23/Z
ExcludePin + XPU/CAM/C
 Max. and Min. Insertion Delay MaxDelay 5ns
 Max. Transition, Capacitance, Fanout MinDelay 0ns
Buffer buf1 buf2 inv1 inv2 del1
 No. Buffer levels (Tree depth) MaxSkew 500ps
 Buffer/ Inverter list MaxDepth 20
 Clock Tree Routing Metal Layers LeafPin + FPU/CORE/A rising
END
 Clock Tree Leaf Pin, Root Pin, Preserve
Pin, Through Pin and Exclude Pin
— Compile CTS using CTS Spec. file
— Place Clock Tree Cells
— Route Clock Tree (Optional and can be done during Signal net

SmartPlay Confidential
routing also) 48
 ASIC Physical Design
Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS)
• CTS Algorithms
— RC Tree Based CTS Clock
Source
— H Tree based Algorithm
— X Tree based Algorithm
— Method of Mean and Median (MMM)
RC-Tree
— Geometric Matching Algorithm (GMA)
— Pi Configuration Clock
Source

H-Tree
Clock
Clock Source
Source

GMA
Pi Configuration 49
SmartPlay Confidential Courtesy: usebackend.wordpress.com
 ASIC Physical Design
Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS)
• Before CTS all Clock Pins are driven by a single Clock Source

F F F F F F
F F F F F F

F F F F F F
F F F F F F
Source clock pin
Clock
sink pins

F F F F F F
Clock F F F F F F

F F F F F F
F F F F F F

50
SmartPlay Confidential Courtesy: vlsi-basics.com
 ASIC Physical Design
Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS)
• After CTS the buffer tree is built to balance the loads and
minimize the skew
F F F F F F
F F F F F F

F F F F F F
F F F F F F

Clock
sink pins
Source clock pin Buffer Tree
F F F F F F
Clock F F F F F F

F F F F F F
F F F F F F

51
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS)
• After CTS a “delay line” is added to meet the minimum Insertion
Delay (ID)
F F F F F F
F F F F F F

Extra buffers
added for F F F F F F
F F F F F F
balancing the
Minimum
Insertion Delay

F F F F F F
F F F F F F
Clock

F F F F F F
F F F F F F

52
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS)
• Analyze the Clock Tree
— Report Timing (both Setup and Hold)
— If timing not met then check clocks be grouped (balanced together)
— Report Insertion Delay & Skew and verify that the targets are achieved
— Report DRV targets (Fanout, Capacitance and Transition)
— Check the intended Leaf Cell (Clock Sinks) is reached
— Check the Clock Tree Exceptions are not in the Clock Tree
— Report the pre-existing cells, such as Clock Gating Cells
— Do Quality-of-Report (QoR)
— Check Clock Tree converges either with itself or with another Clock Tree
— Clock Tree has timing relationship with other Clock Trees for inter Clock
Skew balancing
— Check Design Rule Constraints
— Check Routing Constraints
— Report Power and Area
53
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Post CTS Optimization
• Post CTS Optimization
— Optimization with Useful Skew
— Optimization with Total Negative Slack (TNS)
— Fine Grid Spacing
— Post CTS Optimization Techniques
 Shielding
 Sizing
 Buffer re-location
 Level adjustment
— Optimize the design for Hold Time
 Hold Violations should be fixed first in Best Corner and then in Worst Corner
— Area Optimizations

54
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Routing
• Importance of Routing as Technology shrinks
— Device (Gate) delay decreases
— Interconnect resistance increases
— Vertical heights of interconnect
layers increase, in an attempt to
offset increasing interconnect
resistance
— Area component of interconnect
capacitance no longer dominates
— Lateral (sidewall) and fringing
components of capacitance start to
dominate the total capacitance of
the interconnect
— Interconnect capacitance dominates Multi-level Interconnection (MLI)
total Gate loading Technology Layer stacks

• Routing Objectives
— Skew requirements
— Open/Short circuit clean
— Routed paths must meet setup and hold timing margin
— DRVs max. Capacitance/ Transition must be under the limit
— Metal traces must meet foundry physical DRC requirements
— Layout geometries should meet Current Density specification 55
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Routing
• Routing Stages
— Trial/Global Routing
 Identifying routable path for the nets driving/
driven pins in a shortest distance
 Does not consider DRC rules, which gives an
overall view of routing and congested nets
 Assign layers to the nets
 Identify and assign net segments over
the specific routable window called Global
Route Cell (GRC)
 Avoid congested areas and also long detours
 Avoid routing over blockages
 Avoid routing for pre-route nets such as Rings/Stripes/Rails
 Uses Steiner Tree and Maze algorithm
— Track Assignment
 Takes the Global Routed Layout and assigns each nets to the specific Tracks and
layer geometry
 It does not follow the physical DRC rules
 It will do the timing aware Track Assignment
 It helps in Via Minimization
56
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Routing
• Routing Stages
— Detail/Nano Routing
 Detailed routing follows up with the track
routed net segments and performs the
complete DRC aware and timing driven routing
 It is the final routing for the design built after
the CTS and the timing is freeze
 Filler Cells are adding before Detailed Routing
 Detail Routing is done after analyze the cause
for congestion in the design, add density screen
or change flooplan etc. Trace Grid

Grid Based Routing

Point
•
— Metal traces (routes) are built along and M1

centered upon routing tracks on the grid points

— Various types of grids are Manufacturing Grid,
Routing Grid (Pitch) and Placement Grid
— Grid dimension should be multiple of
Manufacturing Grid M2
Pitch
Track 57
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Routing
• Routing Preferences
— Typically Routing only in “Manhattan” N/S E/W directions
E.g. layer 1 – N/S Layer 2 – E/W
Metal1
— Spacing checks with the adjacent layers VIA34
Metal2
— Width checks for all layers Metal3
— Via dimension rules Metal4
— Slotting rules Metal5
VIA23
— A segment cannot cross another
segment on the same wiring layer
— Wire segments can cross wires on
other layers
VIA12
— Power and Ground have their own
layers, mostly the top layers VIA45
• Layer Routing directions: Each metal layer has its own preferred routing
direction and are defined in a technology rule file
— M1: Horizontal, M2: Vertical , M3: Horizontal, M4: Vertical and so on
• In some cases, we can avoid following preferred routing direction for smart
routing (Non-preferred direction)
58
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Post Routing Optimization
• Signal Integrity (SI) Optimization by NDRs and Shielding for the
sensitive nets
• Types of Shielding for sensitive nets
— Same layer shielding
— Adjacent layer/ Coaxial shielding

Critical
net

Critical net
Non-critical
nets
Non-critical nets Ground net
Ground net in Metal 4
Metal 3 Layer Metal 4 Layer Metal 5 Layer

Same Layer shielding Adjacent Layer/

Coaxial shielding

59
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Post Routing Optimization
• Filler Cell insertion
— Filler Cells can be inserted before or after Detailed Routing
— If Fillers contain metal routing other than Pre-Routing then Fillers
should be inserted before Routing
— Width of the smallest Filler Cell is the Placement Grid Width
— Once Fillers are inserted then the placement is fixed and tool can’t
move Cells for further optimization

60
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Post Routing Optimization
• Metal Fill
— Filling up the empty metal tracks with metal shapes to met metal
density rules
— 2 types of Metal Fill
 Floating Metal Fill: Doesn’t completely shield the aggressor nets, so SI will be
prominent
 Grounded Metal Fill: Completely shields the aggressor nets, so less SI impact
 Grounded Metal Fill is complex as compared to Floating Metal Fill
— Metal Density Rule helps to avoid Over Etching/ Metal Erosion
• Spare Cells Tie-up/ Tie-down
— Tie Cells connects the Gate of Cells to VDD/ VSS so reduces ESD
— Tie-up Cells help in avoid Power Bounce
— Tie-down Cells help in avoid Ground Bounce
— Tie Cells are basically MOS in Diode-Connected configuration

61
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Verification (DRC)
• Design Rule Check (DRC) is the process of checking physical layout data
against fabrication-specific rules specified by the foundry to ensure
successful fabrication
• Process specific design rules must be followed when drawing layouts to
avoid any manufacturing defects during the fabrication of an IC
• Process design rules are the minimum allowable drawing dimensions which
affects the X and Y dimensions of layout and not the depth/vertical
dimensions DRC Rule
Width-based
130nm 90nm 65nm 45nm
1-2 2-3 3-5 7
• As Technology Shrinks Spacing
Min-Area Rule
1 pitch 2 pitch 3 pitch 5 pitch
— Number of Design Rules are increasing
— Complexity of Routing Rules is increasing Cut Number
(Via)
N/A 1-2 4-5 5-6
— Increasing the number of objects involved Dense EoL
N/A N/A M1/M2 All Layers
— More Design Rules depending on Width, (OPC)
Min-step
Halo, Parallel Length (OPC)
N/A 1 5 5

• Violating a design rule might result in a non-functional circuit or low Yield

Metal1 Metal1

Before Fabrication After Fabrication After Fabrication 62

SmartPlay Confidential Spacing violation Width violation
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Verification (DRC)
• Design Rule examples
— Maximum Rules: Manufacturing of large continuous regions can lead to
stress cracks. So ‘wide metal’ must be ‘slotted’ (holes)
— Angles: Usually only multiples of 45 degree are allowed
— Grid: All corner points must lie on a minimal grid, otherwise an “off grid
error” is produced
— Minimum Spacing: The minimum spacing between objects on a single
layer Violations Cleared

Notch Spacing Violation

Notch Spacing Violation

Thin & Fat Spacing Violation

Min. Spacing Violation

63
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Verification (DRC)
• Design Rule examples
— Minimum Width: The min width rule specifies the minimum width of
individual shapes on a single layer
— Minimum Enclosure/ Overlap: Implies that the second layer is fully
enclosed by the first one
— Notch: The rule specifies the minimum spacing rule for objects on the
same net, including defining the minimum notch on a single-layer,
merged object
— Minimum Cut: the minimum number of cuts a via must have when it is
on a wide wire Violations Cleared
Minimum Width Violation

minimum Cut Violation

Minimum Enclosure Violation

64
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Verification (LVS)
• Layout Versus Schematic (LVS) verifies the connectivity of a
Verilog Netlist and Layout Netlist (Extracted Netlist from GDS)
• Tool extracts circuit devices and interconnects from the layout
and saved as Layout Netlist (SPICE format)
• As LVS performs comparison between 2 Netlist, it does not
compare the functionalities of both the Netlist
• Input Requirements
— LVS Rule deck
— Verilog Netlist
— Physical layout database (GDS)
— Spice Netlist (Extracted by the tool from GDS)
• LVS checks examples
— Short Net Error, Open Net Error, Extract errors, Compare errors

65
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Verification (LVS)
• Open Net Error

Same net is routed in two different metal layers but not connected

• Short Net Error

Same net with different pin names Two different nets shorting together
66
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Verification (LVS)
• Extract Errors
— Parameter Mismatch
— Device parameters on schematic and layout are compared
— Example: Let us consider a transistor here, LVS checks are necessary
parameters like width, length, multiplication factor etc.

67
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Verification (LVS)
• Compare Errors
— Malformed Devices
— Pin Errors
— Device Mismatch
— Net Mismatch

68
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Verification (ERC)
• Electrical Rule Check (ERC) is used to analyze or confirm the
electrical connectivity of an IC design
• ERC checks are run to identify the following errors in layout
— To locate devices connected directly between Power and Ground
— To locate floating Devices, Substrates and Wells
— To locate devices which are shorted
— To locate devices with missing connections
• Well Tap connection error: The Well Taps should bias the Wells
as specified in the schematics

69
SmartPlay Confidential Courtesy: asicpd.blogspot.in
 ASIC Physical Design
Physical Verification (ERC)
• Well Tap Density Error: If there is no enough Taps for a given
area then this error is flagged
• Taps need to be placed regularly which biases the Well to
prevent Latch-up
e.g., In typical 90nm process the Well Tap Density Rule require
Well-taps to be placed every 50 microns
• Tools: Mentor Graphics Calibre, Synopsys Hercules, Cadence
Assura, Magma Quartz

70
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
DFM Checks
• Antenna Check (Gate-Oxide Integrity check)
— Maximum net length restriction connected to Gate terminal
• Redundant Contacts/ Via
— Multiple Via improves both Yield and Timing by resistance paralleling
• Metal Filling
— Narrow Metal Layer separated from other Metal Layers may get high
density of etchant than closely spaced wires
— Over etched filling up empty tracks with metal shapes to meet Metal
Density Rules
• Metal Slotting
— Wide metal lines (Power Nets) expands significantly due to the high
temperature during fabrication leads to destruction of the isolation
and passivation layer that protect the wafer
— To avoid it put slots or holes in these metal layers at regular intervals
— Slotting also prevent the stress damage during wafer dicing and
SmartPlay Confidential
packaging 71
 ASIC Physical Design
Formal Verification
• Formal Verification
— Verify the two representations of circuit design exhibits same behavior
— Checks the behavior of the Combinational Logics by checking the
Compare Points
— Targets implementation errors and not the design errors
— Power checks: checks Power Switches/ Retention Cells/ Isolation Cells/
Level Shifters and all power connectivity
— If any manual editing in the design then LEC has to be done at any
point of time
• Formal Verification • Informal Verification
— Complete coverage (Simulation)
— Effectively exhaustive — Incomplete coverage
simulation — Limited amount of simulation
— Cover all possible — Spot check a limited number
sequences of inputs of input sequences
— Check all corner cases — Many corner cases not checked
— No test vectors are needed — Designer provides test vectors
72
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Formal Verification
• Types of Formal Verification
— Gate-level to Gate-level (Logical Equivalence Check after Routing)
• To ensure that some netlist post-processing did not change the functionality of the
circuit
— RTL to Gate-level (after Synthesis)
• To verify that the netlist correctly implements the original RTL code
— RTL to RTL (before Synthesis)
• To verify that two RTL descriptions are logically identical
• Logical Equivalence Check (LEC) will have two stages
— Constrains setup stage
— Logical Equivalence Check stage
• Tool will report equivalent/ non-equivalent/ abort/ not-checked
• Input Requirements
— Netlists (.v)
— Library (.lib and .lef)
— Constraints (.sdc)
• Tools: Mentor Graphics FormalPro, Cadence Conformal, Synopsys Formality,
Magma Quartz Formal

73
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Parasitic Extraction
• Parasitic Extraction: Importance
— Shrinking process geometries
— New device structures
— An increasing number of metal layers at each new process node
— Much more closer nets at each new process node
— Increasing wire aspect ratio of height to width
— Increasing operating frequency
• Parasitic Capacitance can be reduced by using higher metals,
provide spacing, shielding, Avoid parallel routing
• At higher clock frequencies, RC interconnect modeling is no
longer adequate and inductance must be included in
interconnect modeling
• Reluctance (Inductance) effect becomes more and more
prominent as the resistance (both device and interconnect)
decreases and the operating frequency increases 74
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Parasitic Extraction
• Capacitance
C= εo W H/d
— Transistors
 Depends on area of transistor gate, physical of materials, thickness of insulator, diffusion
to substrate
— Poly to Substrate
 Parallel plate and fringing CCROSS COUPLING
— Capacitance between
conductors Metal 2
 Coupling Capacitance
 Area Capacitance CCROSSOVER
 Fringing Capacitance Metal 1
 Crossover Capacitance

Substrate

CAREA CFRINGE CCROSS COUPLING

75
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Parasitic Extraction
• Coupling Capacitance/ Lateral Capacitance
— The capacitance between nets on the same Metal layer
— Dominant over interlayer capacitances with every new process
technology
• Fringing Capacitance
— Capacitance between nets
of different Metal layers and
other layers due to Sidewall
Capacitance
• Parallel/Crossover Capacitance
— Capacitance between nets area area
of 2 different Metal layers
SUBSTRATE
• Area Capacitance
— Capacitance between Metal layers and Substrate
• In modern processes, the width of interconnect wires at lower
levels of metal is so small that the Fringing Capacitance of the
wire is larger than the Area Capacitance
76
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Parasitic Extraction
• Resistance
R = ρ L/H W
— Wire Resistivity
— Complex 3D geometry around Vias

• Inductance
— Self Inductance;
— Mutual Inductance,
— At high frequency Skin effect possibility
• Models used for Parasitic Extraction
— Lumped-C, Lumped-RC, Lumped-RLC
— Pi segment
— Pin-to-pin delays are modeled by RC delays

77
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Parasitic Extraction
• Sub-femto Farad accuracy required for extraction of designs at
advanced technology nodes
• STA tool uses extraction data at fast corner while calculating
hold and slow data while calculating setup to be pessimistic as
possible, so that your chip doesn't fail after it comes back
from the fab
• Common Extraction Formats: Standard Parasitic Format (SPF),
Reduced Standard Parasitic Format (RSPF), Detailed Standard
Parasitic Format (DSPF), Standard Parasitic Extraction Format
(SPEF)
• Tools: Synopsys Star-RCXT, Cadence QRC, Mentor Graphics
Calibre xRC

78
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Timing Analysis
• Static Timing Analysis: Methodical analysis of a digital circuit to
determine if the timing constraints imposed are met and to
check the design is working properly
• Static Timing Analysis Flow
— Read the inputs required
— Setting up Constraints: IO Delay Constraints, DRVs, Timing Exceptions
(False/ Multi-Cycle paths), Recovery and Removal, Minimum Pulse
Width
— Construct Timing Graph: Partition Clock Domain, Ideal/ Propagated
Clock, Case Analysis
— Propagation
— Timing Report: End points with violations/ Paths enumeration
• Input Requirement
— Routed Netlist (.v)
— Libraries (.lib only)
— Constraints (.sdc)
— Delay Format (.sdf)
— Parasitic Values (.spef)
• Tools: Synopsys PrimeTime, Cadence ETS, Cadence Tempus
79
SmartPlay Confidential
 ASIC Physical Design
Timing Analysis (SI)
• Signal Integrity (SI)
— SI refers to the quality of the signal transportation during the circuit
operation
— In deep sub-micron the delays associated with the logic elements far
outweighed delays associated with the interconnect
— SI effects like Crosstalk (both noise and timing), Voltage (IR) Drop,
Waveform Integrity and Electromigration have complex
interdependencies
— When the technology shrinks, the effect of coupling capacitance also
increases
— Crosstalk is the undesirable phenomenon, caused by the cross
coupling capacitance between metal wires in a chip
— Signal Integrity comes as an added feature of Timing Signoff tools
— Crosstalk effects can be analyzed by enabling the SI switch in tools
— If Crosstalk is enabled then the tool will by default do the timing in
On Chip Variation (OCV) mode
—
SmartPlay Confidential
Tool can read the .spef consists of coupling capacitance info. 80
 ASIC Physical Design
Power Analysis & IR Drop Analysis
• Power Analysis
— Static/ Leakage Power Analysis
— Dynamic Power Analysis
• IR Drop Analysis
— Static IR Drop Analysis
— Dynamic IR Drop Analysis
• Tools for Power and IR Drop Analysis
— Synopsys Prime Power
— Cadence EPS and Voltus
— Apache Redhawk
• Tape-out
— Final GDSII (Graphical Data Stream Information Interchange) or CIF
(Caltech Intermediate Format) to Foundry
— GDS contains Physical Layout information
81
SmartPlay Confidential
 Thank You

82
SmartPlay Confidential