摘要 |
A system and method is provided for placing gate capacitors, or other performance enhancing electrical components, in an under-utilized standard cell region. The present invention is a layout design tool that allows the designed to automatically intersperse capacitor filler cells around standard cell logic. The present invention includes creating a region, allocated to the particular standard cell, which has (either by intention or situation) low utilization. The design tool of the present invention can also be used to intentionally under-utilize various functional blocks in order to create areas that can be filled with cells containing gate capacitors. The standard cells may or may not be associated with surrounding logic. The place and route filler cells are redefined to include gate capacitors using abutment rules compatible with the standard cells. This allows the place and route tool, or the like, to locate gate capacitors in the "legal" placement locations not used by standard cells within the under-utilized region. The standard cell region being used for this purpose shares the power and ground supply with the power sensitive areas of the logic.
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