David Abercrombie

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David Abercrombie is the marketing director for Calibre multi-patterning, machine-learning, and licensing applications at Siemens EDA, a part of Siemens Digital Industries Software. Abercrombie drives the roadmap for developing new and enhanced EDA tools to solve the growing challenges in advanced physical verification and design for manufacturing (DFM). Prior to joining Siemens, Abercrombie managed yield enhancement programs in semiconductor manufacturing at multiple companies. He is extensively published in papers and patents on semiconductor processing, yield enhancement, and physical verification. Abercrombie received his BSEE from Clemson University, and his MSEE from North Carolina State University.

Author's Latest Posts

A New Strategy For Successful Block/Chip Design-Stage Verification
By David Abercrombie - 28 Mar, 2024 - Comments: 0

Achieving efficiency in integrated circuit (IC) design while maintaining design quality is not just a goal, but a necessity. Designers constantly strive to strike a balance between ever-tightening time-to-market constraints and the finite resources at their disposal, while ensuring the quality of their designs remains uncompromised. Traditionally, IC design flows have been depicted as a linear ... » read more

A Shift Left Strategy Is One Part Of A Holistic Approach To IC Design Verification
By David Abercrombie - 28 Sep, 2023 - Comments: 0

The whole is more than the sum of its parts. –Aristotle A machine is nothing more than a collection of nuts, bolts, wheels, gears, wires, pipes, chains, and what have you. And yet, when they are all connected up properly, magic happens. Instead of a pile of parts, you have a car, or a dishwasher, or a nuclear reactor. The connections and interactions between all those parts turns the whole... » read more

Will EUV Kill Multi-Patterning?
By David Abercrombie - 19 Jan, 2017 - Comments: 0

When I first began working on double-patterning (DP) tools back in late 2010, there was already talk that it might be a fruitless, or at a minimum, very short-lived project, as extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography was just around the corner and would make all multi-patterning (MP) obsolete. Well, as I begin my seventh year on this project, I can hear echoes of Mark Twain as clearly, the report... » read more

Fill/Cut Self-Aligned Double-Patterning
By David Abercrombie - 17 Nov, 2016 - Comments: 0

By David Abercrombie, Rehab Ali, Ahmed Hamed-Fatehy, and Shetha Nolke Self-aligned double patterning (SADP) is an alternative double-patterning process to the traditional litho-etch-litho-etch (LELE) approach used in most advanced production nodes. The main difference between the two approaches is that in LELE, the layout is divided between two masks, and the second mask is aligned with resp... » read more

The Pitfalls Of Auto-Stitching In Double-Patterning
By David Abercrombie - 22 Sep, 2016 - Comments: 0

Ever since the first double-pattern (DP) odd-cycle error ring was produced on a layout, designers have longed for a magic solution to solve it. Traditionally, the first approach to fixing an odd-cycle error was to move a polygon or a polygon edge to increase spacing to an adjoining polygon in the cycle. Alternatively, you could remove a polygon altogether, or split it into two pieces. All of th... » read more

Colorless vs. Colored Double-Patterning Design Flows
By David Abercrombie - 21 Jul, 2016 - Comments: 0

Colored vs. Colorless double patterning design flows—do you know which one is best for your design? What options does your foundry allow? Do you debug one differently from the other? In this short video, I’ll demonstrate the differences between colored and colorless DP design flows, and explain the options and potential pitfalls of each approach. With a better understanding of how to design... » read more

ECOs and Multi-Patterning: It Can Be Done
By David Abercrombie - 21 Apr, 2016 - Comments: 0

By David Abercrombie and Alex Pearson A lot has been written and discussed about how to decompose (color) layouts for advanced process nodes that require multi­patterning (MP). However, one topic that has been sorely ignored is how to efficiently make changes to designs that are already colored, or even taped out and processed. We tend to act like all designs work out the first time through... » read more

When And How Should I Color My DP layout?
By David Abercrombie - 18 Feb, 2016 - Comments: 0

Designers working with advanced process technologies that require double patterning often find themselves puzzling over the best way to setup or optimize their design flows to ensure their layouts can be decomposed without time-wasting mistakes. Because manual coloring can be challenging even for experienced engineers, many prefer to use automated coloring solutions. But when is the best time a... » read more

Resetting Expectations On Multi-Patterning Decomposition And Checking
By David Abercrombie - 17 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 0

As I said in Part 1 of this topic, it never ceases to amaze me how much confusion and misunderstanding there is when it comes to multi-patterning (MP) decomposition and checking. That entire first article only focused on the typical subjects I’ve had to discuss with customers regarding double-patterning (DP). I have to tell you that with the deployment of triple-patterning (TP) and quadruple-... » read more

Resetting Expectations On Multi-Patterning Decomposition And Checking
By David Abercrombie - 22 Oct, 2015 - Comments: 0

It never ceases to amaze me how much confusion and misunderstanding there is when it comes to multi-patterning (MP) decomposition and checking. I sometimes forget just how new a topic it is in our industry. Because of this short-lived history, and the limited time designers have had to acquire any detailed understanding of its complexity, there appears to be some serious disconnect in expectati... » read more

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