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Process independence

To be useful, a CAD system must provide a way to the silicon, therefore Alliance provides a large set of cell libraries also available at the layout level. The target technologies of Alliance is CMOS. The layout libraries rely on a symbolic layout approach that provides process independence in order to allow the designers to easily port their designs from one silicon supplier to another. The main point in this approach is that the pitch matching constraints in both x and y direction are kept through technological retargetting. The translation, fully automated, relies on a technological file suited to a given process.

These files can be generated directly from the process design rules. Also technological files for several processes are available through the CMP and EuroPractice services, provided you signed a NDA for the process.



 



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