This year at DAC , Sage-DA will present a complete end-to-end design rule development system, starting with design rule capture by the process integration team and delivering a compiled and verified DRC deck that accurately matches and represents the design rule intent.

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The iDRM system consists of:

1. Design rule capture: An easy to use GUI based rule entry tool which supports drawings, logic expressions and tables. Captured rules are executable and can check design examples right away to test the definitions and make sure they accurately express the intent.
2. DRC reference: Once the rules are captured, iDRM becomes the reference checker for DRC deck developers and early access PDK users. The iDRM ruleset fully and accurately represents the design rule intent. It becomes the executable reference for the development and verification of DRC decks.
3. Electronic DRM: Once a set of rules has been captured, the user can view them in the form of an Electronic DRM, or use the tool to publish a traditional DRM copy. The design rule definitions in this DRM are formal, clear, unambiguous and complete.
4. Compiled DRC deck: iDRM enables automatic generation of DRC code by associating DRC code snippets with template rule definitions. For each design rule, iDRM generates the corresponding DRC code using the correct information such as, conditions, layer definitions and all other details. This eliminates errors and ensures consistency between the DRC deck and the DRM.
5. DRC deck verification and coverage: For each rule, the system automatically generates a set of passing and failing layout test cases. These test cases are used to test DRC code. iDRM also provides coverage metrics for these test cases.

Additional functionality:

6. Design Rule Extraction from existing layout: iDRM can extract design rules from a GDS data file and automatically create a design rule manual and DRC check for technologies that do not have proper design rule documentation.
7. Pattern extraction and classification: iDRM can now scan an entire design and extract all existing patterns, sort them and build a complete pattern library for every layer or combination of layers. Using this pattern library, iDRM can then scan any new design and indicate unknown patterns that are not in the pattern library.

Differentiated benefits of the iDRM system

• Clear, unambiguous, precise and validated representation of design rule intent
• Full consistency: DRC code is generated from the design rule definition and is verified against it
• Check-Before-Deck: Early availability of DRC reference for technology and IP development teams
• Significant shortening of effort and schedule for delivery of design enablement kits
• Eliminate the errors and customer confusion associated with early PDKs
• Automated reverse engineering and documentation for legacy or external source technologies

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