The Custom Designer Ecosystem

at Synopsys
Custom Designer
g
Star-RCXT

IC Compiler

IC Validator

Hercules

October 2009
CONFIDENTIAL
1
Custom Designer

9 Complete platform for analog and custom digital block

d i
design
9 Infrastructure
9 Layout
y & schematic editor
9 Schematic driven layout
9 Simulation environment
9 Utilities: translators
translators, Tcl console
console, library manager
manager, hierarchy
editor, parameter editor
9 Integration with other Synopsys tools: ICC, Hercules,
IC Validator
Validator, StarRCXT,
StarRCXT HSPICE,
HSPICE FastSpice

2
New Infrastructure from the Bottom Up

Tcl and Tcl

User Loadable
Customization Shared Libs
Custom Designer
Infrastructure
GUI, Design, Tech, Events,
Geometry Command,
Geometry, Command C
C++
Preferences, Transactions

OpenAccess

3
Interoperable Environment
Custom Designer

9 Open
Legacy

9 OpenAccess Database
9 GUI and Infrastructure
9 In C++ & Tcl
9 Interoperable
9 Schematics,
S h ti llayouts,
t parameters
t
9 Pcells
9 Among all EDA vendors
9 IPL (DAC demo 2008)
9 Laker, Calibre, Custom Designer
9 TSMC tested interoperable

4
Data Interoperability

OpenAccess enables extensive

i
interoperability
bili ffor schematics,
h i llayouts, and
d
pcells.
Interoperability
I t bilit is
i difficult.
diffi lt It takes
t k much h more
than the base OA data model:
Component Description Format
Parameter expressions
Detailed rules for connectivity
y extraction in
schematics
Configured hierarchy

5
IPL Interoperable PDKs Fully Supported
OA Schematic Symbols
Interoperable Component
D
Description
i ti Format
F t (iCDF)
SKILL Callbacks
Tcl Callbacks

PyCells

Sp
Spice
ce Models
ode s

Tech Files
DRC/LVS/LPE

Open Access, Open-standard

languages (Python and Tcl)

One iPDK for all EDA vendors

www.iplnow.com

6
Editors on OpenAccess

Some applications,
pp p
particularly
y
batch applications, use
p
OpenAccess as an exchange g
medium
Editors make it shine
Undo Support
Observer Based Interactions
Region Query

7
Schematic Editor

8
Layout Editor

9
Schematic Driven Layout

10
The Rest of the Flow

Custom Designer can be used as a cockpit

for numerous design steps
Synopsys Interfaces are currently available
for:
OpenAccess translators for GDSII, LEF, DEF and
Verilog
STAR-RCXT
STAR RCXT for parasitic extraction
IC Validator for physical DRC
Simulators: HSIM,, HSPICE,, XA,, VCS,, NanoSim,,
NanoTime
ICC Link for ICC / Custom Designer co-design

11
Integrating Digital & Custom Design
ICC and Custom Designer Links

Custom Blocks

IC Compiler Custom Designer

High Fidelity Link

Routed Chips

12
External Integrations

A major goal of Custom Designer is to

simplify
i lif the i off 3rdd party tools
h iintegration l and d
design assistants.
All off our GUI capabilities
biliti are available
il bl ffor
integrators and several interfaces are
available through registration to both
Synopsys and 3rd party integrations.
Examplesp include Simulators,, SDL
Placement, Plotting, Version Control and
Grid Support

13
Placement (From Ciranova Website)

Helix Integrates Tightly with Your Layout Editor

S
Shown: Synopsys
S Galaxy
G Custom
C Designer

14
Version Control

We have a registration mechanism to

specify a Version Control (aka Data
Management) system per OpenAccess
library.
lib
Interfaces are available or in progress
from:
ClioSoft
ICManage
Dassault (Synchronicity)

15
ClioSoft Interface Example

16
Other Synopsys Use of OpenAccess

Star-RCXT
Writes extracted view
IC Validator / Hercules
Reads OA Layout
MVRC
Reads module hierarchy from verilog2oa

17
Futures

18
Next Steps from OA

Key
y Synopsys
y p y needs:
Continued and Improved Reliability
Continued Compatibility
p y
MultiThreading support, at least for read
access
Everything else:
Better memory usage for large designs
Reliable DMTurbo

19
MultiThreading OpenAccess

MT is very
y difficult in OA due to its highly
g y
optimized implementation
It p
pervasivelyy defers the creation of data
structures even for reading data.
It occasionally caches intermediate results for
use in later traversals.
Processor p
projections
j are for more cores
but each core will be slower

20
MT experiments

Internally
y weve had some success
at doing MT queries after being sure
that the data is pre-conditioned.
p
Ideally need API support for
declaring MT use and for debugging
MT usage.

21
Synopsys Efforts

OpenAccess
p is critical infrastructure for
Custom Designer.
Synopsys is dedicated to enhancing the
use of OpenAccess in custom design
flows.
We are prepared to dedicate developers to
bug fixing and to key development projects
for OA.

22
 Predictable Success

23