Virtual Grid Symbolic Layout
- 1 January 1981
- conference paper
- Published by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Abstract
Free form or "stick" type symbolic layout provides a means of simplifying the design of IC subcircuits. To successfully utilize this style of layout, a complete design approach and the necessary tools to support this methodology are required. In particular, one of the requirements of such a design method is the ability to "compact" the loosely specified topology to create a set of valid mask data. This paper presents a new compaction strategy which uses the concept of a virtual grid. The compaction algorithm using the virtual grid is both simple and fast, an attribute which allows the designer to conveniently interact with the algorithm to optimize a layout. In addition to the compaction algorithm, methods used to create large building blocks will be described. The work described here is part of a complete symbolic layout system called MULGA which is written in the C programming language and resides on the UNIX operating system.Keywords
This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit:
- MULGA-An Interactive Symbolic Layout System for the Design of Integrated CircuitsBell System Technical Journal, 1981
- A Dense Gate Matrix Layout Method for MOS VLSIIEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, 1980
- Bristle Blocks: A Silicon CompilerPublished by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) ,1979
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- SLIP: symbolic layout of integrated circuits with compactionComputer-Aided Design, 1978
- IC mask layout with a single conductor layerPublished by Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) ,1970