Systems & Design
WHITEPAPERS

A Novel Approach To Dummy Fill For Analog Designs

How dummy patterns can be customized and controlled from a design entry system.

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With small geometry silicon processes, additional nonfunctional geometric structures are required to maintain layer planarity during the chemical/mechanical polishing (CMP) phase of processing. The automated layout flows to generate such geometries tend to be designed primarily for large system on chip (SOC) digital designs. When applied to mixed-signal layouts, these flows have been seen to have issues both in delivering the required layer densities, and with flexibility in maintaining symmetry for device matching. This paper describes a novel approach in which the dummy patterns can be easily customized and controlled from a design entry system, and used to drive a Tcl-programmable Calibre SmartFill engine to allow the flexibility required to add dummy fill to a variety of analog layout styles.

To view this white paper, click here.



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