Calibre Auto-Waivers
Calibre® Auto-Waivers™ provides automated recognition and removal of waived design rule violations during DRC. Calibre Auto-Waivers not only eliminates costly time and effort from the verification process, but also ensures accurate processing of all waiver information on every DRC run. Reducing design verification time while simultaneously improving the quality of results can provide the market edge you need to stay ahead of your competition.
Calibre Auto-Waivers
Calibre Auto-Waivers provides automated recognition and removal of waived design rule violations in external IP, eliminating redundant error debugging while ensuring that all waived errors are properly identified during full-chip verification.
Features and Benefits
With Calibre Auto-Waivers, IP providers no longer have to worry about explaining the same waivers to every customer, or renegotiating waivers because the original information is no longer available. The waiver information is permanently embedded into the IP design itself. The IP consumer can now implement external IP with confidence, knowing that waived errors will be automatically removed from the DRC error results, saving the time previously needed to debug them and/or discuss them with the IP provider. This time can now be used to shorten the verification cycle and/or improve the quality of the product.
Automated waiver removal during DRC Accurate and consistent waiver processing Standardized, auditable waiver record Uses existing industry standard formats and too
Calibre Auto-Waivers automatically separates waivers from true DRC errors during the Calibre nmDRC run. By eliminating the need to debug these results, verification time can be significantly reduced.
Calibre Auto-Waivers permanently saves waivers and their associated text to a specific geometry layer, providing a standardized, consistent waiver record. This waiver record not only enables automated waiver removal during DRC, but also enables historical waiver analysis across designs and processes.
Calibre Auto-Waivers' automated identification and removal process is part of each rule deck qualification, so you always know you’re getting Calibre signoff quality results.
Accurate and Consistent IP Waiver Management
Because waiver management has largely been a manual process until now, design rule waivers negotiated between intellectual property (IP) designers and foundries often reappeared as errors at the full chip level, indistinguishable from other DRC violations and requiring full debugging. This productivity “sinkhole” increases verification time without adding value.
Waivers that become modified in context are identified through pattern matching criteria defined by the foundry.
Calibre Auto-Waivers uses industry-standard GDSII or OASIS layout formats to describe waived errors. As the IP designer validates the IP layout, error results that have been waived by the foundry can be stored with the original IP cell. By embedding waiver information into the IP, Calibre Auto-Waivers ensures that waiver details always remain with the IP in a standard format. Later, when DRC is run against a chip containing an IP with embedded waiver information, Calibre nmDRC automatically recognizes the waivers and separates them from true DRC errors.
You can trust Calibre’s results because the waiver process is fully verified as part of the rule deck qualification for the target manufacturing process. Calibre Auto-Waivers automatically and accurately removes all IP waivers from the DRC output, regardless of how or where the errors appear hierarchically. Calibre Auto-Waivers not only eliminates costly time and effort from the verification process, but also ensures accurate processing of all waiver information on every DRC run.
Full waiver reporting
All waivers are listed in DRC reporting for final review and auditability. In addition to waived results found, Calibre Auto-Waivers also reports waived locations not encountered during DRC.
Design features sometimes create an error in isolation that is eliminated when the features are placed in context. Alternatively, a waiver geometry may not meet the level of marginality required to eliminate a final error result.
Calibre Auto-Waivers shows DRC violations grouped by true errors, unused waivers, and waived errors.
Reviewing unused waiver geometries helps track the types of results that are typically corrected in context. Together, the list of waived results and list of “unused” waivers provide the integration designer with the documentation needed to record the history of waiver management in the design.
Reducing design verification time while simultaneously improving the quality of results can provide the market edge you need to stay ahead of your competition.