Overview of LTI's Flow

standard cells, IO cells and memories. SolutionWare does characterization and modeling. CellOpt generates new cells with minimized power dissipation. YieldOpt generates best/worst case netlists under process variation. ChipTimer generates a design specific library through CellOpt. UnBlock and RcBack split a custom and possibly flat design into library cells and interconnect. Each of these tools interface to SolutionWare at some level. Here is an overview of the library generation process, using SolutionWare:
\bgroup\color{blue}$\includegraphics{overview.ps}$\egroup
The SolutionWare tool set automates various tasks involved in setting up a design libraries: functional verification, timing and power characterization, model generation, validation and documentation. Complexity of the cells could range from standard cells to various types of IO's and memories, which all are described using a simple description language, ACDL. Electrical information is provided through a SPICE netlist, which describes the connectivity of various electrical components and parasitics making up the cell. These two inputs are specific to each cell. The tools determine all the relevant electrical parameters, generate stimuli for measuring them, carry out the actual measurement using Spice and and report the results in various formats like NLDM, CCS and ECSM. It interfaces to several different spice simulators, like Hspice, Spectre, Smartspice, Eldo, Hsim etc.. For memories, use of a fast simulator like Hsim or Ultrasim is necessary.

ACDL
ACDL \bgroup\color{blue}$^{\mbox{\tiny TM}}$\egroup description is the entry point for most of the tool set. For most cells, it consists of a single statement expressing the relationship between the inputs and outputs, which is intuitive to most engineers. In spite of its simplicity, ACDL is quite powerful in expressing the relationships between the cell inputs and outputs and cell functionality. Cells such as complex flip-flops, scan cells, adders, etc. are easily described in ACDL. It is assumed that it is a “golden” representation of the cell functionality. All views, including the circuit level implementation are checked against the functional specification in the ACDL description. ACDL is very simple, the following describes a flip-flop with reset:
*header D Flip-Flop with Clear
Q = !RB ? 0 : rising(C) ? D : "p"
which is a concise specification of flip-flop behavior. More complex cells can be described in similar manner, one equation for each output. Memory cells have their own special format, similar to ACDL, but read/write and address modes need to be described. Synchronous rams with all sorts of controls, single or multiple ports, of various sizes and depths can be modeled easily.

LTI is unique in the way we model cells, by requiring the user to enter the function. Almost all of our competitors try to analyze the circuit connectivity and figure out what the function is. This approach may work well for simple combinational cells, but difficult to extend to complex cells like flops with clock enables, special cells like semi-synchronous cells etc.. We have seen cases where such recognition software failed even for a NAND gate. If the logic is not recognized correctly, there may not be a way of correcting it. On the other hand, with ACDL approach, we can even model memories, and compare functions for every generated model.

MakeLib
Unlike most EDA tools, LTI's tools do not have graphical interfaces. This is mainly due to very little need for interactive use during modeling and creation. Almost all the inputs which can be provided by an intelligent user are automatically generated, thus eliminating the need for a graphical interface. Instead, we provide a flow manager, makelib which requires a policy file, .libcharrc, which contains a description of the user preferences and of the environment under which the tools will be working. In addition, a list of cells which need to be processed or modeled and their associated spice data is also required as input. As the contents of library change, only the data associated with new cells are generated. If primary inputs for the cell change, like its spice netlist, all of its associated data are regenerated.
\bgroup\color{blue}$\includegraphics{makelib.ps}$\egroup

For cell characterization and library generation, there is only one command the user needs to know, MakeLib. It reads in a list of cells making up the cell library, and sequences all the steps necessary for the characterization and library building. MakeLib automates almost all of the tasks necessary for creating a standard cell design library. Specifically these are the steps one needs to take in order to do cell characterization and generate libraries. Issue a library building command,

makelib veriloglibrary
makelib libertylibrary
makelib vitallibrary
and MakeLib will step through all the stages of verification, analysis, characterization, modeling and model verification as may be necessary, and it will generate a tested and verified library, compiled and ready to use.
Built-in Parallellism
If the same command is issued again, MakeLib starts a concurrent job for the same goal. There are no special steps necessary for utilizing multiple machines and cpus other than making sure that there are enough licenses available and file systems are consistent across machines. Using the same list of cells and the same configuration file, as many copies of MakeLib can be run concurrently as the number of available licenses. MakeLib distributes the jobs among all available machines.

Easy to Configure
The setup file .libcharrc is interpreted by perl. This allows the customization of any parameter or option in setup file at run time for different cells, different PVT corners and for different stages of library creation and modeling. The default setup file is self documenting, and lists all available options. In this file, type of simulator to use, how to interface to SPICE models, how to execute SPICE, thresholds, supplies, characterization corners, min and max load range for each cell, maximum rise and fall times, and table information for characterization are specified.

Automatic Verification and Test
LTI tools have extensive verification and test capabilities. Basic functionality tests are performed by circuit level simulation. Verilog and Vital models are verified through the use of automatic test benches. Synthesis models are verified formally. SDF back-annotation can be checked between simulation models and synthesis library. Finally, the accuracy of delay calculation can be checked for each cell and timing arc under different load conditions with a single command:
makelib ccstests
which can be used to verify CCS and ECSM models.



Copyright (c) 2019 Library Technologies, Inc., All Rights Reserved.