OpenAccess Workshop Presentation, March 3 2003

Joining OpenAccess: the R&D balance sheet

Ivo van ZandvoortVP Engineering

Sagantec Netherlands

OpenAccess Workshop Presentation, March 3 2003

Sagantec (booth F85)

As a back-end company, our products are used in time-critical parts of the flow and the details make or break the design

Products for physical layouts: Reuse and migration of proven physical design Accelerated implementation of new designs

Both the design data and the technology data are inputs for our products

OpenAccess Workshop Presentation, March 3 2003

Process and Design Data

Translator

LEF/DEF

DFII

GDSII

GDSII

ProcessData

ProcessData

TransistorSizing data

TransistorSizing data

OpenAccess Workshop Presentation, March 3 2003

Challenges

Keep up with technology progress DSM requires tight integration between different design steps Layout and design rule descriptions become more and more complex

Improve customer efficiencyRe-use existing informationTight and flawless integration with other EDA tools

Robust and high quality softwareFocus on the important issuesFast response on customer problems

OpenAccess Workshop Presentation, March 3 2003

Open Access R&D benefitsLess interface effort

One database for all EDA toolsClearly documented API“Unknown” properties are kept and do not need understanding from SagantecAutomatic support for new utilities, e.g. NSF/OASIS

Influence on contentParticipation in workgroupsUse our specific knowledge to co-define the database

Less maintenance effortNo surprise incompatibilitiesEarly access to release schedules and latest versions

Easier problem solvingDatabase can also be accessedAll input in one formatShare tools for analyzing problems

OpenAccess Workshop Presentation, March 3 2003

Open Access R&D costs

IncorporationLearning yet another APIImplementation work

Additional overhead(Temporarily) supporting an additional databaseWork done in the OpenAccess workgroups

OpenAccess Workshop Presentation, March 3 2003

Process and Design Data with OA

Open Access DatabaseDesign data

Technology Data

OpenAccess Workshop Presentation, March 3 2003

Sagantec in OpenAccess

Joined October 2002

Training course followed by engineers

Member of TechWG working groupBring our knowledge about process information to OAStreamline data with other tools

Integration process is startingDemo at DAC with semiconductor company

OpenAccess Workshop Presentation, March 3 2003

Conclusions

R&D benefits Less effort in many different areas More time to focus on the real issues Influence on the contents Easier problem solving

R&D costs Work in TechWG

Customer benefits Plug and play design flows All design data is kept between tools Single tech-file maintenance

OpenAccess lets EDA companies & customers focus on their core─technology!!