Mentor Graphics Corp : Mentor Graphics and GLOBALFOUNDRIES Collaborate on 20nm Fill Solutions Based on Calibre SmartFill

Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ: MENT) today announced that GLOBALFOUNDRIES will use the SmartFill facilities of the Calibre® YieldEnhancer product to enable advanced fill techniques for 20nm manufacturing processes. The multi-layer fill analysis and cell-based fill generation capabilities of the SmartFill system help designers deal with complex fill interactions at advanced nodes with minimal impact on circuit performance. Moreover, Calibre SmartFill delivers greatly reduced post-fill GDS database size and faster runtimes compared to traditional dummy fill. Used with the design kit provided by GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Calibre SmartFill allows designers to meet IC fill constraints in a single pass without manual customization or modification, further reducing tape-out cycle times.

"At 20nm the fill strategy becomes much more sophisticated because it's no longer just about planarity," said Maq Mannan, director of PDK development at GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "Besides CMP-ECD issues, you have to consider a whole range of interrelated effects, such as etch, lithography, stress, rapid thermal annealing (RTA) and other issues essential to successful manufacturing. Calibre's integrated fill analysis and cell-based approach makes fill more precise, while achieving target runtime and output file size."

GLOBALFOUNDRIES' 20nm-LPM technology is a comprehensive and cost-effective platform, delivering up to 40% performance improvement and twice the gate density of 28nm. The company's Fab 8 in New York began running full-loop 20nm silicon in January, and silicon delivery is expected in 2H 2012.

New Capabilities for Advanced Fill Requirements

The Calibre SmartFill solution provides advanced capabilities such as multi-layer fill shapes and user-defined fill cells, which are automatically inserted into a layout based on analysis of the design. It also supports continuous, multi-dimensional functions in place of linear pass-fail conditions, resulting in finer resolution of complex fill algorithms that cannot be performed with single-dimension design rules alone. This allows customers to simultaneously optimize for multiple factors such as density and perimeter.

The SmartFill capability fits seamlessly into the customer's existing design environment, enabling timing-aware fill with back annotation of fill shapes into all leading design databases to support final timing verification. The SmartFill product also allows customers to define a list of critical nets that require special treatment during the fill procedure.

"Precise fill capability is rapidly becoming one of the most critical aspects of design for manufacturing at advanced nodes, and designers need more sophisticated tools to make sure that fill is optimized to meet multiple requirements," said Jean-Marie Brunet, director of product marketing for Calibre DFM at Mentor Graphics. "The combination of GLOBALFOUNDRIES design kits and the Calibre SmartFill product gives designers a solution that creates the exact amount, shape and location of fill, not only to ensure that layouts meet complex manufacturing requirements, but also to maintain their design intent."

About Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics Corporation is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products, consulting services and award-winning support for the world's most successful electronic, semiconductor and systems companies. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues in the last fiscal year of about $1,015 million. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com/.

(Mentor Graphics and Calibre are registered trademarks of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.)

Mentor Graphics
Gene Forte, 503-685-1193
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Sonia Harrison, 503-685-1165
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