Method for analyzing placement context sensitivity of standard cells

A non-transitory computer readable medium including processor-executable program instructions comprising instructions for:

• determining a first canonical set of boundary region structures associated with a first boundary region of standard cells in a standard cell library;
• determining a second canonical set of boundary region structures associated with a second boundary region of the standard cells, wherein the first boundary region and second boundary region comprise adjoining regions of adjacently located standards cells;
• performing proximity analysis on boundary region combinations comprising a boundary region structure from the first canonical set and a boundary region structure from the second canonical set;
• responsive to the proximity analysis raising an exception for a specific boundary region combination, identifying standard cell pairs associated with the specific boundary region combination;
• and
• remediating the standard cell pairs to prevent any standard cell pair from raising the exception.

A data processing system, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a storage medium including processor-executable program instructions for evaluating placement context sensitivity, the program instructions, when executed by the processor, causing the processor to perform operations comprising:
• determining, from a standard cell library including a plurality of standard cells, each indicative of a layout of a plurality of standard cell physical elements, a first boundary library including a first boundary structure corresponding to each of the plurality of standard cells, wherein the first boundary structure indicates a layout of a first boundary region of the corresponding standard cell;
• responsive to identifying multiple first boundary structures in the first boundary library sharing a common layout, merging the multiple first boundary structures into a common boundary structure to produce a reduced first boundary library;
• checking local placement context for the standard cell library by checking local placement context for boundary structure pairs comprising a first boundary structure from the reduced first boundary library and a second boundary structure from a second boundary library corresponding to a second boundary region of the standard cells;
• and
• responsive to an exception raised by the checking of local placement context of a first boundary structure pair:
• identifying standard cell pairs, including a first standard cell and a second standard cell, that have the first boundary structure pair;
• and
• resolving the exception by performing an operation selected from:
• annotating the standard cell pairs that have the first boundary structure pair to constrain a subsequent standard cell placement resulting in a standard cell pair possessing the first boundary structure pair;
• and
• remediating the first boundary structure pair, wherein the remediating includes:
• generating a remediated first boundary structure pair including a remediated first boundary structure;
• and
• replacing instances of the first boundary structure in the first standard cell of standard cell pairs possessing the first boundary structure with the remediated first boundary structure.