OLA/ALF Physical Meeting - 4/18/00 Tempe Arizona, Philips Semiconductors Attendees: John Beatty IBM Paul Zuchowski IBM Anand Sethuraman LSI Logic Wolfgang Roethig NEC Tim Jennings Philips Mike Fickes Philips Jerry Bourke Philips Brief discussion about Cadence Genesis availability for DTC (EDA consortium defining a data model/API). A.I. Check with Morrell on details. - Paul Reviewed the SITE statement. The ALF Symmetry statement was reworked to allow the definition of specific legal orientations. The ALF example needs to be updated to include multiple symmetry statements. It appears that we need to rework this one more time to make the flip and rotate commands independent of one another. Today there is an implied "OR" which makes it impossible to exclude certain orientations. A.I. modify SYMMETRY definition - Wolfgang Reviewed the ANTENNA statement. The connect rules rely on the stack information defined in the layer definitions. Not all of the layers need to be listed in the Connectivity rule, just the beginning and end layers. Tools need to be forgiving of undefined antenna check labels listed within the cell library. Cells can be used in multiple different processes (number of metal levels) and therefore need to be coded with the maximal set of antenna check names in the cell. A.I. LSI to provide feedback based on their methodology/library characterization. - Anand We reviewed the ARRAY statement. The statement allows the definition of routing grids and placement locations. The REPEAT statement is used to allow for a compact description of complex definitions. The ARRAY should be able to be owned by an object (a hierarchical block). The SITE/ARRAY/CELL statements need to be updated to show an explicit origin. The proposed mechanism was by the addition of a GEOMETRIC MODEL to define the bounding box. By default, the bounding box will be a rectangle with the origin at the lower left and the size of the rectangle defined by the width and height attributes. A.I. update ARRAY definition - Wolfgang We discussed the table of definitions at the beginning of chapter 3. A.I. We determined that the FLIP and ROTATE descriptions need to include words which imply the action occurs about the origin of the cell (or an axis that goes through the origin of the cell). - Wolfgang A.I. The description of the ANTENNA keyword is to be changed to use the term "physical net" instead of "antenna" which is recursive. - Wolfgang A.I. Under AREA, the definitions need to be reworded for "If the object is rectangular, then....". Also, it should be noted that these definitions appear to the drawn dimensions of the object before any biasing or scaling of the wire (for SIPPS or extraction as an example). The same change applies to the PERIMETER keyword. - Wolfgang The need and description of the FEEDTHROUGH keyword is unclear. A better understanding of how this keyword is currently used is needed prior to clarifying the spec. We discussed the FLIP keyword. The numeric value corresponds to the direction of the displacement of points within the cell. A.I. Does FLIP=0 correspond to FLIP Y and FLIP=90 to FLIP X in Cadence LEF? - Wolfgang We discussed the WIDTH keyword in the LAYER statement. Paul expressed an interest in being able to list a list of legal widths for the router to use. Wolfgang proposed adding a TABLE to the WIDTH parameter that could be used to define a legal set of wiring widths. A.I. write proposal - Wolfgang We discussed the PATTERN statements. Wolfgang showed an example of collapsing rules by using the GROUP statement to write multiple rules using a single statement. A.I. include example in spec as apps note - Wolfgang We talked about the VIA statement. The term "TOP_OF_STACK" as it applies to vias. That term was considered to be misleading. A.I. change the keyword to STACK_ONLY - Wolfgang We discussed the ROUTING_TYPE keywords. A.I. The definitions contain the names being defined and need to be changed to avoid circular definition. - Wolfgang We discussed the ROW and COLUMN keywords. A.I. We need some feedback from LSI on whether or not the current spec is ok. - Anand