Clay VLSI layout language

Thesis/Dissertation · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1986

OSTI ID:5064768

North, S C

Clay is a procedural language based on C for nMOS VLSI layout. The primitive objects in Clay are wires and symbols. Wires are line segments of a given mask layer. Symbols are small rigid pieces of a layout, such as contact cuts or transistors. Wires and symbols are created and placed in a layout using programming language constructs. Composite structures, such as routing networks, inverters, registers, and PLAs can be written as functions that call lower-level functions or place the necessary wires and symbols directly. The programming language nature of Clay make it convenient to parameterize local and global features of a design, such as the size of a certain pullup transistor or the number of registers in an array. A key property of Clay layouts is that they are flexible. A section of a layout may be stretched as necessary to satisfy constraints on interface wires (those that have connections outside the cell's boundary.) This simplifies cell assembly by eliminating the need for exact pitch matching. All layout in Clay takes place within ordered contexts. Objects placed inside ordered contexts are separated horizontally or vertically, according to the sequential execution of program. There are two steps in the translation of a Clay program. The execution of the user's code wires a system of constraints as a side-effect. The layout constraint solver reads these constraints and outputs a rigid layout mask.

• Research Organization: Princeton Univ., NJ (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5064768
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
990200* -- Mathematics & Computers
CONSTRAINTS
DESIGN
ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
FUNCTIONAL MODELS
INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
MICROELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES