Metal slotting - Calibre DFM functionalities

In submicron ULSI IC, the structures suffer from various reliability issues.

The coefficients of thermal expansion of the silicon and package differ significantly. This mismatch induces mechanical stresses, which can compromise the chip’s integrity, causing cracking on passivation, dielectric and extrusions which might cause shorts.

‘Metal slotting’ which consists in cutting away rectangular pieces of metal from large metal, keeps thermal stress under control. Calibre Equation based DRC and DFM FILL functionalities offer a set of functions, which allow us to identify the wide metals and to create easily over them slot-shapes, increasing the chip reliability.