Today, Si2 announced the first official release of the OpenDFM standard — an open, high-level DRC meta-language that generates popular verification formats to support multiple DRC engines with no loss of accuracy or performance. OpenDFM utilizes a more compact notation for physical verification than traditional DRC rules, and incorporates advanced DFM checks defined by the DFM Coalition. This is a major announcement that demonstrates the real power of “innovation through collaboration” – where industry thought leaders across the supply chain have worked alongside Si2 staff to create and test a new standard that saves substantial time and money while increasing efficiency and portability. For the full press release, see: http://www.si2.org/?page=1285

At the Si2 conference several weeks back, TI announced that OpenDFM enables them to write 3x-20x fewer rules and substantially reduce rule deck complexity. TI observed as much as a 35x reduction in lines of code required with tests performed among 3 major EDA vendors, and proved that all check error counts matched the native DRC code exactly. OpenDFM uses a clever Tcl-based plug-in architecture that is fast and flexible, so additional functions and optimizations can be easily added in a modular fashion. Rapid commercial adoption by all major EDA vendors is anticipated.

So, what exists to help those who are now interested in adopting OpenDFM? There is a substantial amount of value-added “adoption collateral” that accompanies the OpenDFM standard, including an Installation Kit consisting of OpenDFM parser source code, contributed test cases, tutorials, and demonstration code for plug-ins. The parser not only helps companies get started immediately with OpenDFM (rather than attempting to re-create and re-code what already exists), but also helps support more consistent and interoperable adoption across the industry. There are nearly 30 real-world design test cases that DFMC members have shared during the process of developing and testing OpenDFM. There is also reference code that shows how to write a plug-in generator to automatically convert compact OpenDFM code into existing DRC formats (I anticipate that EDA vendors will be providing production plug-ins that generate the specific code used inside existing tools). Si2 has developed tutorials that can help new adopters understand OpenDFM, its features, and how to write rules using OpenDFM. This is particularly helpful when a company has rules that must be supported across different EDA vendors, each of which reads a different DRC format.

In addition to traditional physical DRC rules, OpenDFM includes a rich set of functions to make specifying conditional rules and advanced relationships more efficient, preserving “design intent” that is easier to understand and maintain. The OpenDFM spec even allows for inclusion of embedded images to explain a rule and it’s intent clearly and unambiguously (such as an explanatory drawing or SEM photograph). Advanced DFM checks are supported by utilizing DFM parameters and attributes defined by the DFMC members.

The press release also announces a Request For Technology (RFT) seeking new contributions for upcoming revisions of OpenDFM (see the URL above for details). I want to emphasize that the roadmap for OpenDFM supports electrical as well as physical limiters of effective yield, and as such can help unify the currently disparate array of miscellaneous non-standard file formats that today are not well correlated or synchronized, inviting risk of yield errors and difficulty maintaining them. One prime example is in parasitic extraction, where aligning the process description for use across industry parasitic extractors will add even more benefit beyond the traditional physical DRC realm.

If, like me, you believe that OpenDFM has the potential to be a major advance for physical verification of silicon, please help support this important effort. The full range of adoption collateral (e.g. Installation Kit) is available to all DFMC members. On behalf of the DFMC, we invite you to join them today, and help support this good cause as it continues to advance. Also, please remember that the OpenDFM standard is being made available, free of charge, from Si2’s website.