oxide due to those fluctuations, so TIE cells were introduced between the PG network and the transistor gates.

• TIE cells were thus introduced to prevent ESD-related issues.
• A TIE cell can be easily switched from a logic 0 to a logic 1, or vice versa, by changing just one metal layer.
• For example, if an ECO requires changing a 0 to a 1 on a combinational gate input using only one metal mask, and only one tie-down cell is available, a TIE cell designed so its function can be flipped with a single metal layer makes that localized ECO cost-effective.

KEY TIE cells isolate transistor gates from the PG network to prevent ESD/oxide damage and can be flipped 0-to-1 with a single metal layer.

Functional ECO with Conformal LEC

The functional ECO patch was generated by using Conformal to compare the functional-ECO-implemented synthesized netlist against the existing routed netlist, the equivalence-checking difference produces the ECO patch.

KEY Compare the ECO-implemented synthesized netlist against the routed netlist in Conformal to produce the ECO patch.

Common Top-Level EDI Commands

The commonly used top-level commands include placeOpt, clockOpt, routeOpt, ecoRoute and ecoPlace.

KEY placeOpt, clockOpt, routeOpt, ecoRoute and ecoPlace are the frequently used EDI top-level commands.

Retrieving Option and Default Settings in EDI

Use the get*Mode family of commands, where the wildcard covers modes such as ECO, trialRoute and detailRoute (for example getEcoMode, getTrialRouteMode, getDetailRouteMode).