Inventors:
Stephen Larry Runyon - Pflugerville TX
Joseph Roland Verock - Austin TX
Assignee:
International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY
International Classification:
G06F 945
Abstract:
Layout cells having the same name as a corresponding schematic are checked hierarchically, with a single instance of a particular layout cell being checked internally for compliance with design rules and the like while remaining instances are merely checked for proper connection to neighboring cells. Layout cells which are not named the same as any schematic are automatically exploded for flat checking at the transistor level. Thus hierarchical checking is preserved for those layout cell instances named for the corresponding schematic, which should be the large majority of cell instances in any given integrated circuit, while cell instances meeting special layout requirements, which should be a small number of cases, are supported for any given schematic.