Touch Panel Capacitance Extraction in Hipex Full Chip Extraction Tool Using Stellar Field Solver

The previously standalone Stellar GUI based field solver tool for parasitic extraction is now integrated into Hipex (Silvaco’s full chip extraction tool) in Expert GUI. In Hipex, user can choose proper extraction method (including Steller solver) among different approaches. The GUI of Expert (Silvaco’s layout editor) has been extended to provide technology setup for Stellar mode of Hipex. Also, Expert provides full functional features of GDS drawing, editing and rule checking. As opposed to the Clever field solver based on adaptive meshing, Stellar can handle very large layout size with less memory and reduced runtime with acceptable accuracy (as compared to Clever). Clever, as very accurate adaptive meshing field solver, can be used as reference accuracy check when Stellar or rule based parasitic extraction method is performed in Hipex. In this article, we will review the basic interface of Hipex in Expert GUI using Stellar as a field solver to extract capacitance in touch panel example.

1. Running Expert and Hipex

First, we will launch Expert with Hipex version using the following command.

> expert -V 4.17.20.C -lpev:3.6.5.C

To use Stellar field solver in Hipex, user need to prepare some prerequisite files such as GDS file ( *.eld file in expert layout editor), technology file ( *.tcn ), and DRC file( *.dsf ).

User may use default technology file from Expert installation and can modify it.