OL4.MAR–ArcSys–RP
Algorithmic breakthroughs offer key to IC physical design bottleneck
A new IC design automation software company, ArcSys, Inc. (Santa Clara,
CA), is addressing the problems involved in the physical layout of complex
standard-cell and gate array-based ASIC IC designs containing more than
100,000 cells or one million gates. The company is developing a family of
next-generation IC place-and-route tools especially for submicron designs
containing three or more metal routing layers. ArcSys is responding to a
perception among some industry observers that IC place-and-route tools
have not kept pace with design complexity. “Today's designers of submicron
ICs face a severe 'bottleneck' in physical design and layout,” says Dr.
Mike Tsai, the company's president. “Far too many complex designs pose
severe difficulties during the layout phase of the design cycle, requiring
multiple design iterations and too much manual effort.” Without highly
efficient physical layout tools, such designs may suffer from higher
production costs and reduced circuit performance. For example, according
to the company, a 10% reduction in die size due to efficient routing can
result in a 20% or more reduction in production costs. In addition,
sophisticated place-and-route algorithms are the only way to significantly
reduce interconnect delays in submicron designs, where metal interconnect
delays are often three or four times higher than gate delays. ArcSys
believes that algorithmic breakthroughs are the key to solving these IC
design problems and has focused its resources on developing superior
routing algorithms in placement, routing, and compaction. Furthermore, the
company decided to start “from scratch,” rather than build its products on
top of old technologies. The company's first product–to be introduced in
the second quarter–is claimed to be able to reduce die size by 15% to
30%. It also achieves 100% routing completion and significantly reduces
CPU time. For more information, contact Eric Cho at 408-748-1688, ext.
168, or .
–Richard Pell Jr.
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