Custom Design Tools The Laker3™ Custom Design Tools form a unified front-to-back environment for custom circuit design and layout. They deliver a complete solution for analog, mixed-signal, and custom digital design and layout that is optimized for performance and interoperability for 28-nanometer (nm) and below design flows. Widely-used Interoperable Custom Design Flow Based on the industry standard OpenAccess (OA) database, and with full support for interoperable process design kits (iPDKs), the Laker3 is the latest generation of the widely-used interoperable custom design flow. Laker™ is the mainstream custom design solution at leading fabless semiconductor companies, merchant foundries and integrated device manufacturers. Laker3 provides unparalleled interoperability and an open environment that enables companies to incorporate best-in-class third-party tools for analog simulation, physical verification, extraction and much more. This open system provides: Compatibility with legacy design tools—view/edit schematics or layouts created with other OA-based tools Integration with leading signoff tools for real-time design rule checking during layout editing Complete support for parameterized devices written in open standard languages, such as Python, Tcl or C++ Laker3 Infrastructure Figure 1 Figure 1: The Laker3 product family Laker3 tools are anchored by a performance-driven infrastructure with ultra-fast drawing capabilities, and 2-10X faster read/write operations compared to other custom design tools. The unified binary executable of Laker3 combines design entry, custom layout, custom digital place-and-route, and analog prototyping tools into a single environment. This enables passing of design intent between tools and makes it easy to communicate design changes. Laker3 employs a modern graphical user interface (GUI) based on QT with modern features, such as tabbed windows, one-click open for recently closed designs, and configurable. Figure 2 Figure 2: Schematic-driven layout in the Laker3 environment Laker3 Tools The Laker3 solution includes tools for design entry, analysis, and layout including: Laker Advanced Design Platform Laker Custom Layout System Laker Custom Digital Placer and Router Laker Analog Prototyping Tool Laker Advanced Design Platform The Laker Advanced Design Platform (ADP) integrates the full-featured Laker schematic editor, open simulation console and waveform analyzer into a single circuit design environment. It provides integration of most analog simulators to supply a complete solution for the design of analog, mixed-signal, RF, memory, and custom digital IC designs. Laker Custom Layout System The Laker Custom Layout System provides rule-driven and schematicdriven layout features for generating full-custom layouts in a much shorter time than manual layout methods. Its controllable automation technology simplifies the layout process while reducing verification and debug efforts. Laker Custom Row Placer and Router The Laker Custom Row Placer and Router tools are ideal for automating the placement and routing of cell-based custom digital blocks that are ordinarily created by hand. Together, they facilitate rapid creation of hand-crafted quality digital blocks for mixed-signal, memory, and custom digital integrated circuits. Laker Analog Prototyping Tool The Laker Analog Prototyping tool automates the placement of analog devices. This improves layout productivity and provides designers with fast feedback of layout-dependent effects. It has built-in understanding of analog layout requirements, so it is much easier to adopt and deploy than competing analog automation tools. Laker Custom Layout Automation System The Laker Custom Layout Automation System offers powerful solutions for analog, mixed-signal, memory, and custom digital IC design that address key challenges in the layout process. Hundreds of companies have deployed the Laker Custom Layout System in their design flows to produce highquality, high-density layout of advanced chip designs. The Laker layout system provides an intuitive methodology and controllable automation for efficiently achieving superior layout results. The Laker layout system helps Automate many tedious and errorprone layout tasks Minimize CAD support requirements Reduce overall cost of design Figure 3: Laker custom layout system