Games / Command flash cards / Sign-off checks and violations / Rule families and naming

Rule families and naming

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SourceThese cards describe the checks a design must pass before tapeout, using the rule decks that ship with OpenROAD-flow-scripts: the KLayout runsets for sky130 and ASAP7 and the sky130 layout-versus-schematic runset. Rule names and values are quoted from those files. Every process has its own rules; the families and the reasons behind them are what carry across. Reference: the sky130 design rule documentation (the open rule decks on GitHub).
All 3 cards in this section, with answers
  • m1.1 : min. m1 width : 0.14um m1.2 : min. m1 spacing : 0.14um m1.6 : min. m1 area : 0.083um2 m1.4 : min. m1 enclosure of mcon : 0.03um
    The four basic families: width, spacing, area, and enclosure.

    Hint: Four rules on one layer. Ask what each one measures.

    Nearly every geometric rule is one of these: how narrow a shape may be, how close two shapes may come, how small a shape may be, and how far one layer must extend past another. The names and values here are sky130's, quoted from the rule deck the flow ships. the open rule decks reference

  • GATE.S.1 # ASAP7 m1.2 # sky130
    ASAP7 names the check type as well; sky130 names only the layer.

    Hint: Both encode a layer and a check. Ask which one also encodes the kind of check.

    Both give the layer and a number. In ASAP7 the middle letter also says what is measured: W for width, S for spacing, A for area, EN for enclosure, so GATE.S.1 is a gate spacing rule. sky130 puts the meaning in the description instead, as in m1.2 : min. m1 spacing. the open rule decks reference

  • FIN.W.1 : Exact vertical width of FIN : 7nm GATE.S.1 : Exact horizontal GATE pitch : 54nm
    Rules that fix a dimension exactly, not as a lower bound.

    Hint: Read the word before the dimension. It is not a minimum.

    At small nodes lithography can only print one pitch for the critical layers, so fins and gates are not drawn freely: they sit on a fixed grid at a fixed width. This is why cells at such nodes are drawn to a standard template rather than shaped by hand. the open rule decks reference