POLYTEDA joins Si2’s design for manufacturability coalition

AUSTIN, USA: The Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2) announced that POLYTEDA Software Corporation, a provider of advanced physical verification solutions, is the latest member of Si2’s Design for Manufacturability Coalition (DFMC).

POLYTEDA joins other key players in the semiconductor supply chain, including Cadence Design Systems, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation, Magma Design Automation, Mentor Graphics, STMicroelectronics, Synopsys, Tela Innovations and Texas Instruments, as DFMC members.

DFMC’s charter is to specify open standards for software interfaces between EDA software tools and manufacturing software. The specification includes standard terminology definitions, semantics and exchange formats for relevant manufacturing information. It also includes standard software application program interfaces (API) for models describing different manufacturing processes, yield mechanisms and circuit behaviors.

“The complexity of process steps and inter-dependency with many manufacturability related issues, especially at 40nm and below, are driving the runtimes and complexity of physical verification to unacceptable levels,” said Randy Smith, CEO of POLYTEDA.

“In the short time we have been with the DFMC coalition of Si2, the active participation we have seen between the member companies to come up with an OpenDFM format is impressive. In addition, standards are typically influenced by the dominant, older technologies of the time. But it is also important to understand the emerging technologies so that the new standards do not close off the benefits of the latest developments in these critical areas. We expect to provide that insight for Si2.”

On November 9, 2010, the DFMC members unanimously approved the first official release of the OpenDFM 1.0 standard. This is an open, high-level DRC language that can generate popular verification languages with no loss of accuracy or performance. OpenDFM 1.1 has added significant capabilities, including targeting functions, and has recently been released to the industry.

“DFMC projects are moving very quickly to solve industry problems in the common areas linking design and manufacturing,” said Steve Schulz, president and chief executive officer of Si2. “We thank the DFMC members for their important technical contributions and cooperation in ensuring that all the pieces of OpenDFM work together.”

Membership in the DFMC is open to all interested parties across the semiconductor supply chain.