Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

Heath Feather

Akira Fujimura

Etienne Jacques

Asmus Hetzel

Anish Malhotra

Jon Frankle

Roger King

Richard Holmes

David S Harrison

Alexandre Matveev

Some embodiments of the invention provide a Local Preferred Direction (LPD) wiring model for use with one or more EDA tools (such as placing, routing, etc). An LPD wiring model allows at least one wiring layer to have a set of regions that each have a different preferred direction than the particular wiring layer. In addition, each region has a local preferred direction that differs from the local preferred direction of at least one other region in the set. Furthermore, at least two regions have two different polygonal shapes and no region in the set encompasses another region in the set. Some embodiments also provide a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that facilitates a visual presentation of an LPD design layout and provides tools to create and manipulate LPD regions in a design layout.

Local preferred direction architecture

Local preferred direction architecture, tools, and apparatus

A graphics system readily activates and deactivates layers of a multi-layer source image. Image data, such as a multi-layered integrated circuit ('IC') design, is generated for a multi-layer source image. A pyramid of image tiles defines 'on' and &#x201c;off&#x201d; states for elements that represent the source image. A bit plane identifies values for the elements for each layer of the source image. Mask image data is generated to zero image data associated with at least one layer of the bit plane. The graphics system generates pixel data from the mask image data, and renders the pixel data on an output display.

Methods and apparatus for generating pixel data for multi-layer source images

A technique generates a pyramid of image tiles to represent a source image at different resolutions. A base image tile stores, in a plurality of elements, an 'on' state or an 'off' state to represent the source image at a first resolution. Additional image tiles, with image resolutions lower than the resolution of the base image tile, are generated. The base image tile is divided into groupings of elements, such that each level of the pyramid of image tiles is generated by mapping a grouping of elements from the base image tile to an image tile at different levels of the pyramid. A threshold density of elements in the grouping elements is selected. If the grouping of elements in the base image tile for a level has a threshold density of &#x201c;on&#x201d; elements, the image data for the element in the current level is set to an &#x201c;on&#x201d; state. Conversely, the image data for the element is set to an &#x201c;off&#x201d; state if the threshold density of &#x201c;on&#x201d; elements in the base image tile grouping is less than the threshold density.

Methods and apparatus for generating multi-level graphics data

Growing community of inventors

North Andover, MA, United States of America

Heath Feather