Overview of Design Setup

In Physical Design, Designer has to setup some file prior to work on a project as inputs and we get some files as outputs. Today, we are going to discuss the overview of Design Setup and we will discuss each file in detail in our upcoming posts. But for now, we just take a look at the overview of Design Setup.

In a physical design project, we required various type of data sets or libraries. Libraries are a collection of an abstract view of cells, timing model, simulation or functional model, physical layout, and transistor-level circuit description.

As such, libraries are considered one of the most important and critical parts of the ASIC physical design, and the accuracy of these libraries and their associated views and models have ensured the great success of the final fabricated chip.

Libraries such as standard cell libraries or custom libraries are part of the design of cells in terms of abstract view, layouts, timing model, etc. Custom libraries are also referred to as Intellectual Property (IP) libraries. For examples, we require libraries, which are received by the library vendor, such as LEF, LIB, Timing libraries, technology libraries, etc.

Along with libraries database, we must also require a set of design rules such as Antenna Rules, DRC/LVS Rules, etc. These rules are equally contributed to the fabrication of chip.

The first step in the design is to create or set design libraries which are done by the designer. These libraries consist of technology file, physical reference files such as IO pads, layout cells. All libraries database will utilize throughout the design process.  

Following are the files which are needed for Physical Design:

• Gate Level Netlist (.v) 
• Logical Libraries (.lib) 
• Physical Libraries (.lef) 
• Technology File (.techlef or .tf) 
• Constraints File (.sdc) 
• TLU Plus File (.tlup) 
• SAIF File 
• SPEF File 
• SDF File  
• Design Exchange Format File (.def)

 

At this node of discussion, we wrapped up and we will meet soon with the detailed discussion of each of these files. Thank you. Have a nice day!!