Introduction

PQLab™ serves as an automated QA (Quality Assurance) software for Process Design Kit (PDK). PQLab™ is equipped with qualification mechanisms for entire PDK including PDK integrity, Tech files, PCell CDF, PCell physical verification (DRC, LVS), and SPICE models. From either a PDK developer’s point of view or a circuit designer’s point of view, users can easily define the flow and routines to validate PDK to fit specific applications. As semiconductor process continues to scale down, PDK is becoming more and more complex. The leverage of new process technology makes the device performance more dependent on layout. Based on our years of experiences in advanced PDK development and verification, we developed this PDK verification platform – PQLab™ to help foundry PDK engineers to ensure PDK quality, and help circuit designers to easily analyze and qualify foundry PDKs, compare different versions and different design flows.

Key Benefits

Comprehensive PDK QA procedures: commercial PDK QA software combined with SPICE models.

The platform with comprehensive built-in PDK QA procedures. Built-in Pattern Generation Module: Automatically generates the test patterns for DRC, LVS, CDF or other PDK components.

Complete CDF QA: Verify CDF Specs, CDF Callbacks and CDF parameter consistency with model parameters.

Automatic DRC and LVS QA: Automatically generate test patterns for LVS and DRC QA with an optimized DOE which shortens QA time.

Comprehensive Simulation QA: PQLab™ compares the pre-layout and post-layout simulations by combining SPICE models. It can also compare the results from different combinations of model, LVS and PEX.

Easy Comparison of Design Flows: Help designers to quickly qualify foundry PDK and compare the performance of PDK with different versions or from different vendors.

Applications

Foundry PDK QA for foundry users

Supports a lot of  mainstream foundry PDK formats, as well as a lot of mainstream EDA tools.

PDK qualification and characterization for fabless users

Quick verification of PDK according to design needs with focus on PDK performance. Comparison of PDK performance with different versions or combinations of different model, LVS or PEX.

Design flow comparison for fabless users

Comparison of PDK performance with different versions or from different vendors.

Specifications

OS and Hardware Requirements：

OS: Linux RHEL 5.0 or above.

Recommended Hardware: Pentium 4 CPU or above, 1G ram (2G ram preferred)，multi-core CPU contributes to PQLab's parallel computing capability to speed up DRC/LVS check.