Mentor Graphics and TSMC address advanced node fill requirements using Calibre SmartFill

WILSONVILLE, USA: Mentor Graphics Corp. announced a collaboration with TSMC to support SmartFill functionality in the Calibre YieldEnhancer product for TSMC’s manufacturing processes starting at 65nm. The analysis and automatic filling capabilities of the SmartFill solution allow designers to achieve IC fill constraints with minimal impact on circuit performance in a single pass without manual customization or modification.

“We have worked closely with Mentor to create an effective fill solution for advanced nodes. SmartFill is designed to handle the new fill requirements of our most advanced process technologies,” said Suk Lee, director of Design Infrastructure Marketing at TSMC. “Our collaboration with Mentor cell-based fill is particularly important because it makes writing advanced node fill decks easier, while reducing runtime and output file size by placing cells rather than individual polygons on multiple layers.”

New capabilities for advanced fill requirements
SmartFill integrates the full range of the Calibre analysis engines into the fill process to achieve fully optimized fill without manual iterations. It provides advanced capabilities such as multi-layer fill shapes and the ability to add fill cells, which are automatically inserted into a layout based on analysis of the design.

SmartFill uses continuous, multi-dimensional functions in place of linear pass-fail conditions, enabling finer resolution of complex fill algorithms that cannot be performed with single-dimensional design rules alone. This allows customers to optimize for multiple factors such as density and perimeter.

Since SmartFill employs standard Calibre interfaces, it fits seamlessly into the customer’s existing design environment. It supports timing-aware fill with back annotation of fill shapes into all industry-leading design databases to enable final timing verification. It also allows customers to provide a list of critical nets that receive special treatment during the fill procedure.

“The sophistication of filling strategies has increased dramatically over the last couple of nodes due to the increasing complexity in both manufacturing and design aspects impacted by fill,” said Joseph Sawicki, VP and GM of the Design-to-Silicon division at Mentor Graphics. “SmartFill provides designers with a solution that allows them to generate fill that has been optimized to their specific design and cycle time needs, while still achieving TSMC’s advanced fill requirements.”