Si2 releases OpenDFM 1.0 physical verification standard

AUSTIN, USA: The Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2) announced today the members of its Design for Manufacturability Coalition (DFMC) have 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 utilizes a more compact notation for physical verification than traditional DRC rules; recent tests indicate it can reduce the volume of DRC rules by 5x-20x. OpenDFM describes verification intent for leading process nodes, including conditional rules and ranges of acceptable values. It leverages a plug-in architecture to automatically generate output decks.

Advanced DFM checks are supported by utilizing DFM parameters and attributes defined by the DFMC members. It is expected that OpenDFM will achieve rapid adoption by all major EDA vendors, silicon foundries, and end-user companies.

At a recent conference in Santa Clara, Mark Mason, Director of Design Data Integration for Texas Instruments, commented that Texas Instruments has demonstrated coverage, performance and accuracy of OpenDFM 1.0, working with all major EDA vendors.

No loss of performance versus native code was observed, and all vendors passed the OpenDFM test cases developed by TI and contributed to Si2. He also stated that he believed OpenDFM 1.0 is verified, and that TI intends to implement it into production as soon as possible.

“The OpenDFM 1.0 standard has the potential to improve efficiency throughout the DRC process, from design rule manual development to rule coding and through to end user DRC interpretation,” said Anirudh Devgan, VP/General Manager of Magma’s Custom Design Business Unit. “The combination of the scalability of Magma’s Quartz DRC/LVS solution and this OpenDFM standard will provide users with significantly faster physical verification flows.”

"STARC has worked with DFMC since its inception and has contributed in areas such as Design Intent, and the DFM Dictionary," said Nobuyuki Nishiguchi, VP, GM, Development Department-1 at STARC.

"The release of the OpenDFM V1.0 standard is a major milestone for the group. We expect that it will become an important part of the solution to contain the explosion in Design Rules that we face at advanced process nodes. We look forward to its rapid adoption in the industry."