Implementing designs of guard ring and fill structures from simple unit cells

摘要

Systems and methods for creating and placing custom guard rings create a guard ring from a plurality of unit cells reflecting the devices that are enclosed in the guard ring. Using a unit cell identified by a design tool user as the basic unit of the guard ring, with a few additional setup parameters, a complete, content-aware guard ring is created. The guard ring will consist of a collection of the identified unit cells placed around the circuit devices that are to be protected. The created guard ring will function as a single circuit component. Edits to the dimensions and/or parameters of the unit cell will affect the placement of the unit cell in the protected area and will therefore require creation of a new guard ring consistent with the changed parameters.

主权项

1. A method for using a processor for creation of a guard ring in a circuit design, the method comprising:
upon receipt of a unit cell based on a portion of the circuit design, identifying configuration parameters for the guard ring, comprising a plurality of the unit cells, to be placed around the portion of the circuit design; identifying an area around the portion where the guard ring will be placed; and iteratively performing the following steps until the identified area has been covered:
identifying a part of the area to be covered by a unit cell,extracting geometries from the identified part of the area,calculating unit cell parameters for a unit cell to be placed in the identified part of the area based in part on the extracted geometries,creating a unit cell with the calculated unit cell parameters, andplacing the created unit cell in the identified part of the area.