CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
6 May 2009
Implementation Investments
Magma's Quartz DRC in Use At PDF Solutions for Leading-Edge Process Yield Improvement
Magma® Design Automation Inc. announced that PDF Solutions®, Inc., a provider of yield improvement technologies and services for the integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing process life cycle, used Magma's Quartz(tm) DRC Physical Verification system to develop a Characterization Vehicle® test chip for a leading semiconductor manufacturer. The Quartz products' ability to support the complex, leading-edge, deep submicron process rules, and the availability of native Quartz runsets, enabled PDF Solutions to make assurances to its client regarding the manufacturability of the yield-improvement related CV® test chip.
Implemented through PDF Solutions' Design-to-Silicon Integrated Yield Ramp solution, the CV test chip was based on PDF Solutions' proprietary test structures and complied with the advanced design rules of the target process. Magma's physical verification solution -- already the gold-standard sign-off tool for the process -- and the ready availability of yield rating decks developed with Quartz DRC enabled timely completion and verification of the test chip.
"Quartz DRC provides key capabilities that help address the complex design rules of leading-edge process technologies, including restrictive design rules and complex via and foundry-specific advanced manufacturability checks," said Howard Read, senior director of Global Field Services at PDF Solutions. "Those capabilities combined with existing runsets and fast runtime allowed us to tape out the test chip quickly."
"For semiconductor companies, the faster they can ramp up to high yields, the faster they can achieve a return on investment in new processes," said Anirudh Devgan, general manager of Magma's Custom Design Business Unit. "The fast turnaround time achieved by PDF Solutions on this test chip highlights the runtime achievable with Quartz DRC. We're pleased to continue working with PDF Solutions to accelerate yield ramp of advanced processes."
Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS: Fast, Accurate, Fully Scalable Physical Verification
Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS are architected to process integrated circuit (IC) designs of any size, at any technology node, in the least amount of time. Magma's is the first truly scalable physical verification solution, able to provide turnaround time that is up to an order of magnitude faster than existing solutions by leveraging existing compute resources. The Quartz tools are fully compatible with third-party IC implementation flows and can read file formats used by traditional physical verification tools. When combined with Magma's Talus® platform for digital implementation, Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS offer additional time savings by eliminating the need to stream data between the implementation system and the physical verification tool.
"Liberate Me" Trial Program: Test Drive Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS
To free designers from the runtime bottlenecks of legacy tools and make it easier for them to leverage the Quartz tools' advanced technology to accelerate physical verification of large integrated circuits (ICs), this week Magma launched the "Liberate Me" program. This program offers a free 60-day trial of the latest versions of Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS. Engineers can request the software at http://www.magma-da.com/liberate-me.
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