Improving Pin Accessibility of Standard Cell Libraries in 7nm Technology

Tsao-Hsuan Peng, Chih-Chun Hsu, Po-Chun Wang, Rung-Bin Lin
Yuan Ze University


Abstract

In this article we present several approaches to improving pin accessibility of standard cells designed with ASAP7 PDK. These approaches are refining pin layout, using double-row height cells, using double-row height cells with must-join pins, inserting dummy polys into hard-to-access cells, and excluding cells with poor pin accessibility from a cell library. We create five 6-track standard cell libraries using these approaches. We also look into pin-access challenges intrinsically tied to a process technology. Experimental results show that the approaches of inserting dummy polys into hard-to-access cells and refining pin layout persistently are most effective in mitigating pin access problems.