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Sequence Design has received a patent for interconnect-driven design optimisation, a key technology for fast design closure below 90nm, that has been deployed in the company's latest version of PhysicalStudio.
PhysicalStudio has been used for two years on more than 120 tapeouts by designers at the forefront of system-on-chip design US Patent 6,591,407 "Method and apparatus for interconnect-driven optimisation of integrated circuit design", describes a phased optimisation methodology to speed design closure.
The design is first "preconditioned" to ensure that no part of the circuit is operating outside of its specified range.
This targets specific problem areas, or "hot spots", within the design that can be ranked using a unique algorithm to identify locations where performance improvements will have the greatest potential impact.
Following this step, optimisation of hold and set-up time violations is performed automatically.
Fixes are performed with surgical precision to minimise the impact on the layout so additional iterations can be avoided.
The new design methodologies described in the patent, include the work of co-authors, Douglas Kaufman, Dr Vinay Srinivas and Dr Robert Mathews.
 

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