Automated Wiring Analysis of Integrated Circuit Geometric Data
Read PDF →Lang, 1979
Category: EDA
Overall Rating
Score Breakdown
- Cross Disciplinary Applicability: 2/10
- Latent Novelty Potential: 3/10
- Obscurity Advantage: 4/5
- Technical Timeliness: 4/10
Synthesized Summary
This paper explores extracting circuit information directly from integrated circuit mask geometry using polygon manipulations and geometric heuristics.
While it represented an early approach to layout analysis, a balanced assessment reveals significant limitations that outweigh its potential for modern research.
It offers no unique, actionable path for modern research that isn't already better served by more robust, precise, and scalable techniques developed over the past decades in EDA or other fields dealing with complex geometric analysis.
Optimist's View
The core idea of extracting structural and statistical information directly from low-level geometric mask data using polygon operations is foundational to layout analysis in CAD.
The emphasis on polygon manipulation as the main tool, rather than image processing or post-extraction graph analysis, holds potential for a different kind of structural analysis.
The methods described, particularly the extensive use of polygon operations... have significant potential far beyond integrated circuit design.
Modern computing power... could enable these geometric analysis techniques to be applied to much larger and more complex datasets in significantly shorter times, unlocking value that was simply not feasible in 1979.
Skeptic's View
The paper is explicitly focused on analyzing geometric data from NMOS LSI designs described in CIF 2.0. This is a severe constraint.
The paper admits these heuristics 'lose accuracy if a design style falls outside of these assumptions' and 'misinterpret the geometry in many instances.'
The 'precise' method relies heavily on polygon manipulations, explicitly stating, 'polygon manipulation... incurs an overhead that makes the execution of large polygon operations slower than it would otherwise be.'
Virtually every major EDA tool suite today includes highly optimized and rigorously validated tools for: Layout Extraction (LVS)... Parasitic Extraction... Geometric Operations...
Final Takeaway / Relevance
Ignore