Apples, oranges, pears, and lemons…comparing rule-based PEX to field solver results can be fruitless if you’re not careful

By Yousry ElMaghraby – Mentor, A Siemens Business

Need to validate your rule-based PEX against a field solver solution? Better make sure your setup creates an “apples to apples” comparison.

There comes a time in every electrical engineer’s life when the great question arises—Is my rule-based parasitic extraction in sync with field solver results? Maybe you’re a foundry or EDA engineer working on a new PEX rule deck, and you need to check those rules against a field solver solution to ensure they’re correct. Maybe you work for a design company that just made the move to a new process node, and you need to know if your PEX tool can properly handle the new technology. Whatever the reason, you need to make sure that the results you’re getting from rule-based PEX correlate closely to those obtained by a field solver.

So, you just grab a design, run rule-based PEX and field solver PEX, and put the results side by side, right? If you do that, I can pretty much guarantee you’re going to be disappointed, confused, or frustrated. Or maybe all three. That’s because there are a lot of reasons why those results won’t match, but they don’t have ANYTHING to do with whether or not your rule-based PEX is returning accurate results. Instead, it’s all about the set-up and running of the two processes. Understanding the design and setup conditions that can skew the results, and how to adjust for these conditions, is essential if you want a fair and true comparison.

Fortunately, we’ve published a white paper that walks you through each of the potential issues, and explains how to modify your PEX runs to ensure you get that “apples-to-apples” comparison you’re looking for. Download a copy of Validating rule-based parasitic extraction against a field solver solution and you’ll have all the information you need to ensure an accurate correlation. There’s nothing like the sweet taste of confidence…