Strategy
provides interface and utility functionality for place and route. Strategy can
be used to connect placement and routing engines from different
vendors thru it's LEF/DEF interfaces. Strategy augments these engines with
power and ground routing, filling and floorplanning capabilities.
A block diagram of Strategy linking Cadence's First Encounter placer
with Cadence's NanoRoute can be found here.
Strategy may also be used for post route editing by using Strategy's
DEF reader and then using commands from both strategy and slam to fix DRC errors, or
tweak the design as desired. After editing the design, it may be exported out using
either the gds translator provided with the layout editor or the DEF
translator provided with Strategy. Because the editor supports both
connectivity and the wire types (like ring for example), the exported
DEF can be used by the route engine for later ECO's. A simple flow diagram
is here.
System Capacity/Performance
Strategy Features:
* All the features of LD-View.
* All the features of Slam-View.
* A point to point router Click
here for details.
* Data translation includes verilog and LEF/DEF in & out.
** Automatic generation of Stabie-Soft library configuration file
from LEF to expedite setup.
* Add wire command that lets you "stay on track".
* Track based Add Via command.
* Add coordinate command that lets you "stay on track".
* Connected stretch command to speed post route edits
and keep the stretch wire on track and connected.
* Join wires.
* Trim wire.
* Initial floorplanning of the design.
* Show me net (wiring, flight lines or Min Span Tree)
- wiring sample
fly sample
MST sample
* Show me inst to see clustering of std cells after placement.
Here is an example of a
design where each
group of cells has been well isolated by the placer. Note very few
of the std cells in each group are placed outside of its group.
The show inst command quickly lets you see where various parts of the
design hierarchy was placed with its pattern capability.
* Pad placement.
* Row/pad filling.
- sample
* Power Routers (Strap, Ring, Std Cell rails, Pad).
- sample 1 which is an image of the bottom of
a design showing the core ring at the bottom and one vertical strap connecting
to multiple standard cell row rails, sample 2, which is
a zoomed out view of sample 1, showing both the vertical and horizontal straps.
macro ring sample 1 which is image of a
macro cell with a ring and stub routes to the macro's PG pins,
macro ring sample 2 which
is a zoomed in view of the previous sample. All of these routes were performed completely
automatically. One of the most important features of our power router is the ability to
tweak the power routes with the editor though.
* Editing (with slam-edit license)
* Optional tracking of modified nets. (For DRC or limited net DEF generation).
* Stream conversion (with slam-edit license)
* Differences command to report changes between versions of the block. (For ECO)
