JP2000172737A - Automatic layout device for mask pattern - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an automatic layout device that performs automatic layout for wiring division. SOLUTION: This automatic layout device is provided with an input device 1, an automatic arrangement wiring processor 2 which operates according to program control, based on an input from the device 1, a storage device 3 storing information and an output device 4. The processor 2 comprises a division wiring number extracting means 21 which extracts a division wiring number from technical information, an element extracting means 22 for extracting an element from the technical information, an element eliminating means 23 for eliminating an element according to connection information, a corresponding means 24 for new wiring name and element, a connection information synthesizing means 25 for automatic wiring which synthesizes connection information for automatic wiring, an automatic wiring means 26, a recovering means 27 for a wiring name and an automatic wiring means 28. The storage device 3 is provided with a backup file 31, connection information 33 for automatic wiring and a correspondence file 34.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic layout apparatus for automatically performing a layout design of a mask pattern, and more particularly to an automatic layout apparatus for performing an automatic layout for wiring division.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, the combination of wiring and circuit elements of a semiconductor device has become complicated, and an automatic layout apparatus for automatically designing a layout of a mask pattern has been put into practical use. Conventionally, there are various methods used in an automatic mask pattern layout apparatus, such as a method of automating wiring division for the purpose of reducing the man-hour required for layout. This method depends on connection information. In recent years, as the degree of integration increases, the degree of influence of wiring impedance is great, and in particular, the designation of wiring division is increasing. Here, the designation of division of the wiring means to designate a circuit element to which one wiring is connected or another wiring. An example of an automatic wiring apparatus similar to an automatic layout apparatus for a mask pattern is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H5-24337.
No. 6 and JP-A-9-91318.

Referring to FIG. 6 and FIG.
The automatic wiring device described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 376 will be described. FIG. 6 is a circuit diagram of an automatic layout system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-243376, and FIG. 7 is a layout example of the circuit shown in FIG. In the circuit diagram of FIG. 6, wiring attributes 7 and 7 ′ are added to terminals 6 and 6 ′ connected to the circuit elements 5 and 5 ′ in advance, and connection information generated from the circuit diagram is automatically added. Take it into the layout system. Next, the terminal 6 'to which the special attribute 7' is added at the time of placement is searched, and the pseudo element is arranged so that the terminal 12 of the pseudo element 10 contacts the terminal 9 'of the cell 8' corresponding to the terminal 6 '. I do. Next, from the terminal 9 of the cell 8 corresponding to the terminal 6 to which the attribute 7 of equipotential wiring is added to the terminal 6 'to which the special attribute 7' is added, the other terminal 12 'of the pseudo element 10 Are automatically connected according to the layout data 11. FIG. 7 shows the result.

A layout method of an automatic semiconductor integrated circuit disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-91318 will be described with reference to FIGS. 8, 9 and 10. FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a macro for division according to an embodiment of JP-A-9-91318, FIG. 9 is a circuit example to which the macro for division shown in FIG.
0 is a layout example of the circuit shown in FIG. In the automatic layout apparatus, the dividing macro 13 including the terminals 14, 15, 16 and the wiring 17 as shown in FIG.
The circuit information in which the dividing macro 13 is inserted into the part to be divided as shown in FIG. As a result, FIG.
At the time of wiring, as shown by 0, the emitter terminal of Q1 is connected to the terminal 14 of the macro 13 and the emitter terminal of Q2 is connected to the macro 1
3 terminal 16. Terminals 14, 16 and 15
Are connected by the wiring 17 inside the divided macro 13, and can be divided into three.

[0005]

However, the above-described conventional automatic wiring device or automatic layout device has a problem and has not yet reached a satisfactory stage. For example, the automatic wiring apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-243376 has the following problems. First, manual operation is required to determine the position of the terminal 12 'of the pseudo element 10. Second, when the wiring is moved by layout correction or the like, it is necessary to make corrections in the arrangement process by adding pseudo elements. Third, since attributes are manually added to the circuit data whose functions and characteristics have been confirmed, input errors are likely to occur, and in the connection verification, the circuit data whose functions and characteristics have been confirmed are used. There is a problem that not.

The layout method of the automatic semiconductor integrated circuit described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-91318 has the following problems. First, in order to lay out using multilayer wiring, which is the mainstream of layout design, it is necessary to prepare a macro in which the wiring in the dividing macro corresponds to the multilayer wiring. Second, it is necessary to prepare a macro that takes into account the width of the wiring based on the wiring life, impedance, and the like. Third, when the wiring is moved by layout correction or the like, similar to the second problem of the above-mentioned Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-243376, it is necessary to correct the layout process by adding a dividing macro. I will. Fourth, features,
Since the divided macro is manually added to the circuit data whose characteristics have been confirmed, an input error is likely to occur, and the above-described circuit data whose functions and characteristics have been confirmed are not used in connection verification. There is.

As a problem common to both of them, as shown in FIG. 11, there is a possibility that an input error may occur due to manual insertion of attribute description or insertion of a divided macro in circuit data whose function and characteristics have been confirmed. is there. In addition, as shown by 40 and 41 in FIG. 9, connection information is created from circuit data in which an attribute and a divided macro are inserted in circuit data in which functions and characteristics have been confirmed. There is a problem that connection verification cannot be performed. In summary, there is a problem that automatic layout of wiring division cannot be performed.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an automatic layout device for performing automatic layout of wiring division.

[0009]

In order to achieve the above object, an automatic layout apparatus according to the present invention is an automatic layout apparatus for automatically designing a layout of a mask pattern, comprising: an input device; and an input device. And an automatic wiring processing device that performs automatic processing of the wiring division by performing arithmetic processing on connection information created based on the circuit data input from the automatic wiring processing device. Extraction means for extracting wiring, and connection information creating means for dividing the extracted wiring designated for wiring division, adding a new wiring name to the divided wiring, and combining with the original connection information to create new connection information And is characterized by having.

In the present invention, a wiring with a wiring division designation is extracted from the connection information created from the circuit data, the wiring with the wiring division designation is divided from the original circuit data, and a new wiring name is added. Automatically lay out connection information by associating circuit elements connected to wiring with wiring division designation with new wiring names. Further, circuit data is restored, and the divided wiring that has been divided is connected by automatic layout, thereby realizing wiring division in automatic layout.

Preferably, the extracting means extracts a wiring number of the wiring designated to be divided from the connection information, and a circuit element connected to the wiring designated to be divided. Element extraction means for extracting
Further, the connection information creating means may include: an element deleting means for deleting the original circuit element based on the original connection information input from the input device; , Add new wire names to split wires,
Automatic wiring connection information synthesizing means for creating new connection information by combining the new wiring name and element with the original connection information. The new wiring name and element correspondence means divides the wiring. A means for associating a new wiring name with a circuit element.
Specify a new wiring name and associate the circuit element with the new wiring name.

Further, the automatic layout apparatus of the present invention includes a connecting means for restoring circuit data and connecting the divided wirings by automatic layout. Preferably, the connecting means performs automatic wiring based on the connection information obtained by the automatic wiring connection information synthesizing means and creates automatic layout data, and the new wiring name added to the divided wiring to the original wiring name. And wiring name restoring means for restoring the wiring name.

Further, the automatic layout device of the present invention includes a storage device for storing connection information obtained by arithmetic processing by the automatic wiring processing device. The storage device is extracted by the divided wiring number extracting means, and is stored in the automatic wiring means. A backup file for storing the input divided wiring numbers, an element storage file for storing the circuit elements extracted by the element extracting means and input to the corresponding means of the new wiring names and the elements, Automatic wiring connection information file for storing circuit elements input to wiring connection information synthesizing means, and correspondence data created by means for associating new wiring names and elements and input to automatic wiring connection information synthesizing means Corresponding file.

The element deletion means is means for deleting the original circuit element from the original connection information input from the input device.

[0015]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Embodiment Example This embodiment is an example of an embodiment of an automatic layout apparatus according to the present invention. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an automatic layout apparatus according to this embodiment, and FIG. 2 is an example of this embodiment. 3 is an equivalent circuit diagram of connection information created by the automatic layout apparatus of FIG. 2, FIG. 3 is an equivalent circuit diagram of connection information input to the automatic layout apparatus of the present embodiment, and FIG. 4 is a layout example of the circuit shown in FIG. Reference numeral 5 denotes a layout example in which automatic layout is performed after restoring the division unit in FIG. As shown in FIG. 1, the automatic layout apparatus according to the present embodiment includes an input device 1 for inputting data through a keyboard, a network process, and the like, and an automatic placement and routing process that operates under program control based on input from the input device 1. The apparatus includes a device 2, a storage device 3 for storing information, and an output device 4 for performing display, network processing, and the like.

The automatic placement and routing apparatus 2 includes a divided wiring number extracting means 21 for extracting a divided wiring number from technical information,
Element extracting means 22 for extracting circuit elements connected by divided wiring from technical information, and element deleting means 23 for deleting original circuit elements from original connection information input from the input device
An automatic wiring connection information synthesizing means 25 for synthesizing automatic wiring connection information;
It comprises automatic wiring means 26, wiring name restoring means 27, and automatic wiring means 28. The automatic wiring means 26 is a means for automatically wiring the wiring related to the wiring division designation,
On the other hand, the automatic wiring means 28 is a means for automatically wiring wiring irrelevant to the wiring division designation. The storage device 3 includes a backup file 31, an element storage file 32,
An automatic wiring connection information 33 and a correspondence file 34 are provided.

Next, the operation of the automatic layout apparatus according to the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIGS. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. First, the connection information of FIG. 3 created from the circuit data is input to the input device 1. Subsequently, the divided wiring number extracting means 21 extracts a wiring number for which wiring division is specified, for example, VCC1 in FIG. 3 from the input connection information. Next, the element extracting means 22 is a circuit element connected to the wiring number extracted by the divided wiring number extracting means 21. In FIG. 3, Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, R1, R2, C1,.
C2 is extracted, and the identification number of the extracted circuit element is stored in the element storage file 32. Next, the element deleting means 23
The circuit elements and wiring numbers extracted by the divided wiring number extracting means 21 and the element extracting means 22 are deleted based on the connection information, and the deleted connection information is stored in the automatic wiring connection information 33.

Next, means 24 for associating new wiring names with elements.
Is means for associating a new wiring name to be divided with a circuit element. First, an input is made as to how many divisions the wiring VCC1 should be divided. In FIG. 2, there are four divisions of VCC1 to VCC4. Next, the new wiring name / element correspondence means 24 designates the new wiring name, VCC1 to VCC4 in FIG. 2, and makes the circuit element extracted by the element extracting means 22 correspond to the new wiring name. That is, the means 24 for associating a new wiring name with an element uses Q2, R1 for the wiring name VCC1, Q1 for the wiring name VCC2,
C1, wiring name VCC3, Q4 and C2, wiring name VC
C3 is associated with Q3 and R2, and data indicating the correspondence between the divided wiring and the circuit element connected thereto is stored in the corresponding file 3.
4 is stored. Next, connection information synthesizing means 25 for automatic wiring
Creates the connection information as shown in FIG. 2 by combining the connection information 33 for automatic wiring and the corresponding file 34.

Next, the automatic wiring means 26 performs automatic wiring based on the connection information shown in FIG. 2, and creates layout data as shown in FIG. Since the divided portion is divided into four parts and the wiring names are newly added as they are, the connection information is different from the connection information of FIG. 3 input to the input device 1. New wiring name added to the divided wiring, VCC1 to VCC4 in FIG.
To the original wiring name VCC1. Next, the automatic wiring means 2
In step 8, automatic wiring is performed again to connect the wirings of the divided portions to create layout data as shown in FIG. 5.

As described above, the automatic layout apparatus according to the present embodiment divides the wiring designated as the wiring division, adds a new wiring name, and executes the wiring by the wiring restoring means by the information processing. This has the effect of automatically performing the division and the effect of confirming the consistency with the circuit data whose functions and characteristics have been confirmed in connection verification.

[0021]

According to the present invention, a wiring with a wiring division designation is extracted from the connection information created from the circuit data, and the wiring with the wiring division designation is divided from the original circuit data to obtain a new wiring name. Performs addition, creates connection information by associating circuit elements connected to wiring with wiring division designation with new wiring names, performs automatic layout, restores circuit data, and automatically splits divided wiring. By connecting by layout, wiring division can be realized in automatic layout. Further, by the information processing, it is possible to divide the wiring designated as the wiring division, add a new wiring name, and automatically execute the wiring division by the wiring restoring means. This has the effect that the coincidence with the circuit data whose characteristics have been confirmed can be confirmed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of an automatic layout device according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is an equivalent circuit diagram of connection information created by the automatic layout device of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an equivalent circuit diagram of connection information input to the automatic layout device of the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a layout example of the circuit shown in FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 is a layout example in which an automatic layout is performed after restoring the division unit in FIG. 2;

FIG. 6 is a circuit diagram input to a conventional automatic layout system.

FIG. 7 is a layout example of the circuit shown in FIG. 6;

FIG. 8 is a diagram showing a division macro of another conventional automatic layout device.

FIG. 9 is a circuit example to which the dividing macro of FIG. 8 is applied.

FIG. 10 is a layout example of the circuit shown in FIG. 9;

FIG. 11 is a work flow comparing the prior art and the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Input device 2 Automatic arrangement and wiring processing device 3 Storage device 4 Output device 5, 5 'Element on circuit diagram 6, 6' Terminal of element 7, 7 'Attribute which means wiring division 8, 8' On layout data Element (cell) 9, 9 'Cell terminal 10 Pseudo-element 11 Wiring on layout data 12, 12' Pseudo-element terminal 13 Wiring division macro 14-16 Terminal 21 Divided wiring number extracting means 22 Element extracting means 23 Element deleting means 24 New wiring name and element correspondence means 25 Automatic wiring connection information synthesizing means 26 Automatic wiring means 27 Wiring name restoration means 28 Automatic wiring means 31 Backup file 32 Element storage file 33 Automatic wiring connection information 34 Corresponding file 40 Conventional example Between layout data and circuit data in connection verification of connection verification 41 Layout data in connection verification of another conventional example 42 Correlation between layout data and circuit data in connection verification of the embodiment

[Procedure amendment]

[Submission Date] September 16, 1999 (1999.9.1)
6)

[Procedure amendment 1]

[Document name to be amended] Statement

[Correction target item name] Claim 3

[Correction method] Change

[Correction contents]

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. An automatic layout apparatus for automatically performing a layout design of a mask pattern, comprising: an input device; and connection information created based on circuit data input from the input device, the wiring being performed. An automatic wiring processing device that performs an automatic layout of division; an automatic wiring processing device that extracts wiring that specifies wiring division from connection information; and divides and extracts the extracted wiring that specifies wiring division. And a connection information creating means for creating a new connection information by adding a new wiring name to the created wiring and combining the original connection information with the new connection information. 2. An extraction means for extracting a wiring number of a wiring designated for wiring division from connection information, and extracting a circuit element connected to the wiring for which wiring division is specified. 2. The automatic layout apparatus for a mask pattern according to claim 1, further comprising: an element extracting unit that performs the operation. 3. The connection information creating means divides the extracted wiring designated for wiring division and divides the wiring into the element wiring based on the original connection information input from the input device. A new wiring name and element correspondence means for adding a new wiring name to the wiring, and automatic wiring connection information synthesizing means for synthesizing with the original connection information to create new connection information. The element correspondence means is a means for associating a new wiring name to be divided into wiring and a circuit element, and inputs how many divisions of the wiring to be divided, designates a new wiring name, and designates a new wiring name. The automatic layout apparatus of a mask pattern according to claim 1, wherein circuit elements are associated with each other. 4. The mask pattern according to claim 1, further comprising connection means for restoring the circuit data and connecting the divided wirings by automatic layout processing. Automatic layout equipment. 5. The connecting means performs automatic wiring based on the connection information obtained by the automatic wiring connection information synthesizing means and creates automatic layout data and layout data based on a new wiring name added to the divided wiring. 5. The automatic layout apparatus for a mask pattern according to claim 4, further comprising a wiring name restoring means for restoring to the wiring name. 6. A storage device for storing connection information obtained by arithmetic processing by an automatic wiring processing device, wherein the storage device stores a divided wiring number extracted by a divided wiring number extracting means and inputted to the automatic wiring means. A backup file to be stored, an element storage file that stores the circuit elements extracted by the element extraction means and input to the new wiring name and element correspondence means, and an element deletion file that is deleted by the element deletion means and input to the automatic wiring connection information synthesis means Automatic wiring connection information file for storing circuit elements to be connected, and a corresponding file for storing corresponding data created by the new wiring name and element correspondence means and inputted to the automatic wiring connection information synthesis means. Claim 5
3. An automatic layout apparatus for a mask pattern according to claim 1.