Apparatus, Method and Computer Program Product for Fast Stimulation of Manufacturing Effects During Integrated Circuit Design

A method comprising:

• selecting a representative integrated circuit;
• using a comprehensive simulation tool to predict a physical characteristic of the representative integrated circuit resulting from a manufacturing step of the particular manufacturing process;
• partitioning the layout into tiles and classifying the tiles into classes based on tile metrics;
• using the predictions of the comprehensive simulation program to generate a simplified model of the physical characteristic that result from the manufacturing step for each class;
• and
• using at least one of the simplified models of the physical characteristic created from the representative integrated circuit instead of the comprehensive simulation program during integrated circuit design to adjust an integrated circuit design.

A computer program product comprising a computer readable memory medium tangibly embodying a computer program, the computer program executable by digital processing apparatus, wherein when the computer program is executed the computer program is configured to select a representative integrated circuit, wherein the integrated circuit is to be manufactured using a particular manufacturing process;

• to use a comprehensive simulation tool to predict a physical characteristic of the representative integrated circuit resulting from a manufacturing step of the particular manufacturing process;
• to partition the layout into grid tiles and classify tiles into classes based on tile metrics;
• to use the predictions of the comprehensive simulation program to generate a simplified model of the physical characteristic that result from the manufacturing step for each tile class;
• and to use at least one of the simplified models of the physical characteristic created for portions of the representative integrated circuit during circuit design to adjust an integrated circuit design.

An apparatus comprising:

• a memory storing a computer program;
• and
• a processing apparatus coupled to the memory and configured to execute the computer program, wherein when the computer program is executed operations are performed, the operations comprising:
• generating a design of an integrated circuit;
• while generating the design of the integrated circuit, using a simplified model to predict at least one physical characteristic of the integrated circuit which results from a processing step to be used during manufacture of the integrated circuit, wherein the simplified model is derived from simulations performed prior to the design generation activities using a comprehensive simulation program used to model the physical characteristic;
• predicting performance of the integrated circuit using the predicted physical characteristic;
• and
• adjusting the design of the integrated circuit in dependence on the performance prediction.