Computational geometry

IEEE transactions on computer-aided design of integrated circuits and systems : a publication of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society

A method of fabricating a semiconductor device includes preparing a semiconductor wafer having a top surface and a bottom surface. The semiconductor wafer is loaded onto a wafer chuck, and the bottom surface of the loaded semiconductor wafer faces the wafer chuck. A groove is formed in the top surface of the loaded semiconductor wafer by irradiating a second laser onto the top surface, and a reforming region is formed in the loaded semiconductor wafer under the groove by irradiating a first laser through wafer chuck and bottom surface of the semiconductor wafer into a region in which the first laser is focused. The semiconductor wafer is unloaded from the wafer chuck. The bottom surface of the semiconductor wafer is ground to decrease a thickness of the semiconductor wafer. The semiconductor wafer is separated along the groove and the reforming region, thereby forming a plurality of unit chips.

Method of Fabricating Semiconductor Device

This book provides broad and comprehensive coverage of the entire EDA flow. EDA/VLSI practitioners and researchers in need of fluency in an "adjacent" field will find this an invaluable reference to the basic EDA concepts, principles, data structures, algorithms, and architectures for the design, verification, and test of VLSI circuits. Anyone who needs to learn the concepts, principles, data structures, algorithms, and architectures of the EDA flow will benefit from this book.


Covers complete spectrum of the EDA flow, from ESL design modeling to logic/test synthesis, verification, physical design, and test - helps EDA newcomers to get "up-and-running" quickly 
Includes comprehensive coverage of EDA concepts, principles, data structures, algorithms, and architectures - helps all readers improve their VLSI design competence 
Contains latest advancements not yet available in other books, including Test compression, ESL design modeling, large-scale floorplanning, placement, routing, synthesis of clock and power/ground networks - helps readers to design/develop testable chips or products 
Includes industry best-practices wherever appropriate in most chapters - helps readers avoid costly mistakes



Table of Contents


Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Fundamentals of CMOS Design Chapter 3: Design for Testability Chapter 4: Fundamentals of Algorithms Chapter 5: Electronic System-Level Design and High-Level Synthesis Chapter 6: Logic Synthesis in a Nutshell Chapter 7: Test Synthesis Chapter 8: Logic and Circuit Simulation Chapter 9:?Functional Verification Chapter 10: Floorplanning Chapter 11: Placement Chapter 12: Global and Detailed Routing Chapter 13: Synthesis of Clock and Power/Ground Networks Chapter 14: Fault Simulation and Test Generation.

Electronic Design Automation: Synthesis, Verification, and Test

Modern global routers employ various routing methods to improve routing speed and quality Maze routing is the most time-consuming process for existing global routing algorithms This paper presents two bounded-length maze routing (BLMR) algorithms (optimal-BLMR and heuristic-BLMR) that perform much faster routing than traditional maze routing algorithms In addition, a rectilinear Steiner minimum tree aware routing scheme is proposed to guide heuristic-BLMR and monotonic routing to build a routing tree with shorter wirelength This paper also proposes a parallel multithreaded collision-aware global router based on a previous sequential global router (SGR) Unlike the partitioning-based strategy, the proposed parallel router uses a task-based concurrency strategy Finally, a 3-D wirelength optimization technique is proposed to further refine the 3-D routing results Experimental results reveal that the proposed SGR uses less wirelength and runs faster than most of other state-of-the-art global routers with a different set of parameters , , ,  Compared to the proposed SGR, the proposed parallel router yields almost the same routing quality with average 271 and 312-fold speedup on overflow-free and hard-to-route cases, respectively, when running on a 4-core system

https://ir.nctu.edu.tw:443/bitstream/11536/21646/1/000318163800005.pdf

NCTU-GR 2.0: Multithreaded Collision-Aware Global Routing With Bounded-Length Maze Routing

As the technology node advances into the nanometer era, via-open defects are one of the dominant failures due to the copper cladding process. To improve via yield and reliability, redundant-via insertion is a highly recommended technique proposed by foundries. Traditionally, double-via insertion is performed at the postlayout stage. The increasing design complexity, however, leaves very limited space for postlayout optimization. It is thus desirable to consider the double-via insertion at both the routing and postrouting stages. In this paper, we present a new full-chip gridless routing system considering double-via insertion for yield enhancement. To fully consider double vias, the router applies a novel two-pass, bottom-up routability-driven routing framework and features a new redundant-via aware detailed maze routing algorithm (which could be applied to both gridless and grid-based routing). We also propose a graph-matching based post-layout double-via insertion algorithm to achieve a higher insertion rate. In particular, the algorithm is optimal for grid-based routing with up to three routing layers and the stacked-via structure. Experiments show that our methods significantly improve the via count, number of dead vias, double-via insertion rates, and running times.

/pdf/full-chip-routing-considering-double-via-insertion-3cu1eh09o7.pdf

Full-Chip Routing Considering Double-Via Insertion

Global routing is an important step for physical design. In this paper, we develop a new global router, NTUgr, that contains three major steps: prerouting, initial routing, and enhanced iterative negotiation-based rip-up/rerouting (INR). The prerouting employs a two-stage technique of congestion-hotspot historical cost pre-increment followed by small bounding-box area routing. The initial routing is based on efficient iterative monotonic routing. For traditional INR, it has evolved as the main stream for the state-of-the-art global routers, which reveals its great ability to reduce the congestion and overflow. As pointed out by recent works, however, traditional INR may get stuck at local optima as the number of iterations increases. To remedy this deficiency, we replace INR by enhanced iterative forbidden-region rip-up/rerouting (IFR) which features three new techniques of (1) multiple forbidden regions expansion, (2) critical subnet rerouting selection, and (3) look-ahead historical cost increment. Experimental results show that NTUgr achieves high-quality results for the ISPD'07 and ISPD'08 benchmarks for both overflow and runtime.

High-performance global routing with fast overflow reduction

A method and apparatus for achieving multiple patterning compliant technology design layouts is provided. An exemplary method includes providing a routing grid having routing tracks; designating each of the routing tracks one of at least two colors; applying a pattern layout having a plurality of features to the routing grid, wherein each of the plurality of features corresponds with at least one routing track; and applying a feature splitting constraint to determine whether the pattern layout is a multiple patterning compliant layout. If the pattern layout is not a multiple patterning compliant layout, the pattern layout may be modified until a multiple patterning compliant layout is achieved. If the pattern layout is a multiple patterning compliant layout, the method includes coloring each of the plurality of features based on the color of each feature's corresponding at least one routing track, thereby forming a colored pattern layout, and generating at least two masks with the features of the colored pattern layout. Each mask includes features of a single color.

Method and apparatus for achieving multiple patterning technology compliant design layout

A method identifies, as an independent node, any node representing a circuit pattern in any odd loop of a layout of a region of a layer of an IC that is not included in any other odd loop of the layout. The layer is to have a plurality of circuit patterns to be patterned using at least three photomasks. The method identifies, as a safe independent node, any independent node not closer than a threshold distance from any other independent nodes in another odd loop of the layout. The layout is modified, if the circuit patterns in the layout include any odd loop without any safe independent node, so that that after the modifying, each odd loop has at least one safe independent node.

Layout method and system for multi-patterning integrated circuits

Among other things, one or more techniques and systems for performing design layout are provided. An initial design layout is associated with an electrical component, such as a standard cell. The initial design layout comprises a first pattern, such as a mandrel pattern, and a second pattern, such as a passive fill pattern. An initial cut pattern is generated for the initial design layout. Responsive to identifying a design rule violation associated with the initial cut pattern, the initial design layout is modified to generate a modified initial design layout. An updated cut pattern, not resulting in the design rule violation, is generated based upon the modified initial design layout. The updated cut pattern is applied to the modified initial design layout to generate a final design layout. The final design layout can be verified as self-aligned multiple patterning (SAMP) compliant.

Huang-Yu Chen

Papers

Full-Chip Routing Considering Double-Via Insertion

High-performance global routing with fast overflow reduction

Method and apparatus for achieving multiple patterning technology compliant design layout

Layout method and system for multi-patterning integrated circuits

Self-aligned multiple patterning layout design