Expert layout editor version 4.0.1R has several new commands and functions released together with the new Qt GUI interface. Most of them are developed in order to improve easier operation.
Q. Every time I create a new project or library, an empty cell with the same name is created in my project. What do I need to setup to avoid the creation of this empty cell?
SILVACO has recently released a new suite of interconnect analysis tools to meet the demands of state of the art cell, circuit and chip design.
On the cutting edge of LSI design, the accuracy of Layout Parasitic Extraction (LPE) tools is a critical issue to miniaturized LSI design of rules measuring 0.13 um or lower. The quantitative consideration of coupling capacitance based on three-dimensional calculation is indispensable. Conventional advanced LSI design tools and methodology are limited in their ability to optimize the LPE library. As a result, the discussion of LPE tool accuracy and extracted parasitic results lack significant quantitative generality.
When solving for the static CV curve for a MOS capacitor, due to the absence of current carriers, convergence can be a real problem. Previous methods suggested in the hints and tips archive of Silvaco’s simulation standard have made use of Silvaco’s Luminous module where a small amount of light intensity is incident on the device, the idea being to generate a small amount of carriers to aid convergence.
Expert Parametric Wire (Pwire) is a complex group of objects containing, a single wire named master wire, any number of subparts such as enclosure wires, offset wires and sets of rectangles. Pwire objects enable extremely quick and efficient creation and editing of guard rings and shielded paths which are increasingly important due to higher integration density of IC designs.
Many users would like to extract SPICE models from their process and device simulation using Athena and Atlas to be used in actual circuit simulation without actually fabricating the device.
Using SILVACO’s Utmost you can extract SPICE model parameters from the simulation results of Athena and Atlas.
For LCD and Memory designs, Array Copy function on Gateway is conveniently used. Users may want to align instances from specified instance number, for example starting from X100 or X1000. Here introduces a convenience way to realize it.
A new Hierarchical Layout versus Schematic (HLVS) system that provides significant improvement in verification of huge circuits is described. Other of LVS verification tools perform a netlist flattening and comparison in transistor level [1, 2]. These tools are based on standard graph isomorphism algorithms and are sufficiently efficient in practice.
Introduction
One of the key components in many RF ICs applications is the inductor. It is very important that the inductor has optimal design, meaning optimal geometry with the best possible characteristics [1]. Our computer-aided optimization technique using geometric programming (GP) has been used to find the optimum design for spiral inductors with different layout [2-4]. The goal is selection of the best geometry of inductors to find optimal values of inductor parameters (the number of turns and layout dimensions) and then drawing layouts of optimal inductors. Silvaco Expert is a powerful tool for drawing spiral inductors with different mask geometry (square, octagonal or circular). In this paper we presents a simple way to draw layouts of optimal inductors in Expert, without using parameterized cells.