Vroom! Vroom! Getting to the tapeout finish line faster…
By Srinivas Velivala – Mentor, A Siemens Business
The Calibre RealTime Digital interface helped Qualcomm spend less time fixing DRC errors, providing more time to create innovative, high-quality designs that get to market faster. It can help you do the same…
To start a Ford Model T automobile, you must set the brake, place the transmission in neutral, open the choke (anyone remember those?), open the gas line, then handcrank the engine until it turns over. Many of today’s cars let you start the engine from inside your house, with the push of a button. Same results? Yep. Faster? Easier? You bet…
Qualcomm found themselves using P&R signoff DRC closure flow that was focused on achieving their power, performance and area criteria—a worthy and important goal, to be sure, but one that required them to export the P&R data, merge P&R data with IP data, then run signoff DRC against merged database. Not an optimum use of their time and resources, especially when they were trying to achieve critical SoC milestones.
However, they recognized the opportunity for significant improvement, and found a way to achieve it. Adding the Calibre RealTime Digital in-design verification solution lets Qualcomm get immediate Calibre signoff DRC feedback on targeted window-based DRC fixes, before generating the merged P&R and IP data and launching a complete signoff DRC run. The two critical use cases include signoff DRC during base layers tapeout, and IP interface signoff DRC during metal layers tapeout. Not only is Qualcomm saving significant time in their tapeout schedules by minimizing the number of full-chip closure iterations, they also avoid costly design changes late in the design cycle. And they have confidence in the results, because they’re using Calibre signoff rule decks.
If you’re thinking that your Model T could use an upgrade, you can learn more about how Calibre RealTime Digital functionality helped Qualcomm improve their digital design implementation in our white paper, Qualcomm achieves faster signoff DRC convergence in P&R with Calibre RealTime Digital DRC
