US 12,645,858 B2 · Generating routes for an integrated circuit design with non-preferred direction curvilinear wiring

Abstract

Some embodiments of the invention provide an integrated circuit (IC) that has a novel non-preferred direction (NPD) wiring architecture. In some embodiments, the IC includes a substrate and multiple wiring layers, which include a first set of one or more wiring layers with no preferred wiring directions, and a second set of one or more wiring layers with preferred wiring directions. In some embodiments, the first set of wiring layers includes the third and fourth wiring layers, while the second set of wiring layers includes the fifth and higher metal layers with successive neighboring layers having different (e.g., alternating) preferred wiring directions. The first set of wiring layers in other embodiments includes the third wiring layer but not the fourth wiring layer, which in these embodiments has a preferred wiring direction.

Claims21

Dependent claims

A method of routing an integrated circuit (IC) design, the method comprising:

performing a first set of non-preferred direction (NPD) routing operations to define curvilinear routes traversing a first routing layer for a first set of nets, the first set of NPD routing operations performing searches for paths that traverse the first routing layer without traversing any routing layer above the first routing layer;
performing a second set of NPD routing operations to define curvilinear routes traversing a second routing layer for a second set of nets, the second set of NPD routing operations performing searches for paths that traverse the second routing layer without traversing any routing layer above the second routing layer;
and
performing a third set of preferred direction (PD) routing operations to define, for a third set of nets, a plurality of rectilinear PD routes that traverse along a plurality of PD routing layers above the first and second routing layers.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Generating routes for an integrated circuit design with non-preferred direction curvilinear wiring

Life of this patent

Generating routes for an integrated circuit design with non-preferred direction curvilinear wiring

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims21