Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comp. Ltd.

Yen-Pin Chen

Chung-Hsing Wang

Tai-Yu Cheng

Tzu-Hen Lin

King-Ho Tam

Wen-Hao Chen

Sung-Yen Yeh

Li-Chun Tien

Lee-Chung Lu

Po-Hsiang Huang

Fong-Yuan Chang

Ting Yu Chen

Chun-Chen Chen

Shao-Huan Wang

Li-Chung Hsu

Sheng-Hsiung Chen

Jerry Chang-Jui Kao

Yuan-Te Hou

Chih-Hsiang Yao

Chung-Kai Lin

Florentin Dartu

Huang-Yu Chen

Chung-Min Fu

Chin-Hsiung Hsu

Zhe-Wei Jiang

Wei-Chih Hsieh

Chung-hsing Wang

Sheng-hsiung Chen

Yung-Fong Lu

Yeh-Chi Chang

Systems and methods for context aware circuit design are described herein. A method includes: identifying at least one cell to be designed into a circuit; identifying at least one context parameter having an impact to layout dependent effect of the circuit; generating, for each cell and for each context parameter, a plurality of abutment environments associated with the cell; estimating, for each cell and each context parameter, a sensitivity of at least one electrical property of the cell to the context parameter by generating a plurality of electrical property values of the cell under the plurality of abutment environments; and determining whether each context parameter is a key context parameter for a static analysis of the circuit, based on the sensitivity of the at least one electrical property of each cell and based on at least one predetermined threshold.

Systems and methods for context aware circuit design

An integrated circuit includes a cell that is between a substrate and a supply conductive line and that includes a source region, a contact conductive line, a power conductive line, and a power via. The contact conductive line extends from the source region. The power conductive line is coupled to the contact conductive line. The power via interconnects the supply conductive line and the power conductive line.

Integrated circuit having a high cell density

For a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device, a corresponding layout diagram is stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, the layout diagram being arranged relative to first and second perpendicular directions, the layout diagram including cells such that, for a subset of the cells, each subject one of the cells (subject cell) in the subset has a neighborhood including first and second neighbor cells on corresponding first and second sides of the subject cell relative to the first direction. The method includes: for each subject cell in the subset, generating a sidefile which represents neighborhood-specific proximity-effect information. For each cell in the subset of the cells, the generating a sidefile includes populating the sidefile with a first neighbor-specific proximity-effect (NSPE) parameter corresponding to an inter-cell proximity-effect induced by the first neighbor cell and a second NSPE parameter corresponding to an inter-cell proximity-effect induced by the second neighbor cell.

Method of generating netlist including proximity-effect-inducer (PEI) parameters

A method for timing optimization is disclosed. The method includes obtaining information on timing of paths in a chip, the information including a mean of slacks and a sigma of slacks of each of the paths; determining a sigma margin (SM) value each of the paths, the SM value being obtained by dividing the mean by the sigma; dividing the paths into groups based on SM values, an SM value of a path in one of the groups being different from that of a path in another one of the groups; and determining a yield requirement that indicates the maximum number of paths allowable in each group in order to achieve a predetermined yield.

Method and system for sigma-based timing optimization

A method for timing optimization is disclosed. The method includes obtaining information on timing of paths in a chip, wherein the information includes a mean of slacks and a sigma of slacks of each of the paths, determining a sigma margin (SM) value each of the paths, the SM value being obtained by dividing the mean by the sigma, and determining that a first path of the paths is more critical than a second path of the paths, an SM value of the first path being smaller than that of the second path.

A method includes identifying the first path as a target path, wherein an operation speed of the target path is adjusted from the corner case; deriving and outputting first values from the lookup table by indexing the lookup table with a threshold voltage associated with the first path identified as the target path as the main threshold voltage and a threshold voltage associated with the second path as the slave threshold voltage; calculating a first extra time based on the first values and first cell delays associated with the first path.

Method of timing analysis

In some embodiments, a plurality of first input waveforms having a same first input transition characteristic and different first tail characteristics are obtained. A first cell is characterized using the plurality of first input waveforms to create a plurality of corresponding first entries associated with the first input transition characteristic in a library. A design layout is generated based on performing circuit simulation using at least one entry of the plurality of first entries. An integrated circuit (IC) chip is manufactured using the design layout.

Characterizing cell using input waveforms with different tail characteristics

A method performed by a processor, the method including preparing a netlist describing a first circuit including an active component; obtaining an original electrical characteristic of the active component, wherein an electrical characteristic of the active component is the original electrical characteristic in a condition that the active component has not been operated; obtaining an aged data describing a variation in the original electrical characteristic, wherein the variation is caused by operating the first circuit under a first mode and a second mode different from the first mode during a time period; providing a simulation result by simulating, based on an aged electrical characteristic, the first circuit operating under the first mode and the second mode during the time period, wherein the aged electrical characteristic is a combination of the original electrical characteristic and the variation.

Semiconductor circuit design and manufacture method

A method of designing a circuit includes designing a first layout of the circuit based on a first plurality of corner variation values for an electrical characteristic of a corresponding plurality of back end of line (BEOL) features of the circuit. Based on the layout, a processor calculates a first delay attributable to the plurality of BEOL features and a second delay attributable to a plurality of front end of line (FEOL) devices of the circuit. If the first delay is greater than the second delay, a second layout of the circuit is designed based on a second plurality of corner variation values for the electrical characteristic of the corresponding plurality of BEOL features. Each corner variation value of the first plurality of corner variation values is obtained by multiplying a corresponding corner variation value of the second plurality of corner variation values by a corresponding scaling factor.

Circuit design method and system

In some embodiments, in a method performed by at least one processor, a cell is characterized, by the at least one processor, with respect to an input transition characteristic considering different circuit topologies of a pre-driver driving the cell resulting in the same input transition characteristic.

Characterizing cell using input waveform generation considering different circuit topologies

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Taipei, Taiwan

Yen-Pin Chen