Synthesis tool meets complex design rules

Yet another DFM tool in the market.

DFM Blaze announced a DFM tool, Blaze IF, to address topology variations caused due to CMP. It intelligently inserts dummy metal fill patterns into a design layout taking into account not only the design requirements like power and timing needs, but also the electrical issues like signal integrity and IR drop – which traditional approaches to metal fill do not accomplish.

This is in addition to the announcement of Blaze MO, announced earlier this year which provides guidance to OPC tool used in manufacturing through an annotation layer in the GDSII database. The tool optimizes the design by small tweaking of the gate lengths (within the process limits) for reducing leakage power and improving timings and provides this guidance to the OPC tool.

All these aim to bridge the gap between design and manufacturing. Instead of a blanket set of rules for the complete design, design specific and design objectives’ relevant optimizations are carried forward to the manufacturing. Making it an integral part of the flow before handoff to manufacturing is a step closer to address issues arising out of the open loop caused by changes made to the design after handoff – oblivious to the design issues which may be impacted.