Institut f

ur Integrierte Systeme
Integrated Systems Laboratory

Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering

VLSI II: Design of Very Large Scale Integration Circuits

227-0147-00

Exercise 2

Introduction to Innovus
Prof. Dr. H. Kaeslin
Dr. N. Felber

SVN Rev.: 1751

Last Changed: 2016-09-16

Reminder:
With the execution of this training you declare that you understand and accept the regulations about
using CAE/CAD software installations at the ETH Zurich. These regulations can be read anytime at
http://eda.ee.ethz.ch/index.php/Regulations.
1 Overview

This exercise will allow you to see a completed back-end design flow of an actual manufactured
ASIC, and get familiar with the back-end tool that we use, Innovus (formerly SoC Encounter) of
Cadence Design Systems. It is meant as an introduction to the back-end design flow. We will cover
the individual steps of the back-end design flow in a series of exercises. The Exercise 5 will cover
preparation of input files and Floorplaning. Power analysis and IR drop effects will be discussed in
Exercise 6 and 7, and the placement and routing steps will be the topic of Exercise 8. Finally, in
Exercise 9 we will see chip finishing steps. It is the end product of these exercises that you will see
today.

Student Task: Parts of the text that have a gray background, like the current paragraph, indicate
steps required to complete the exercise.

2 Using Innovus

First a warning: Innovus is a state-of-the-art EDA package used in the industry. It contains many
features that we will not require (or we have not yet included in our design flow), dont be overwhelmed
by them.
To get familiar with Innovus, let us take a look at a completed design first.

Student Task 1:
Copy the files required for this exercise by using the following command:
/home/vlsi2/ex02/install_ex02

This should create a directory named ex02/ . Enter this directory and start cockpit:
cd ex02
icdesign umcL65 &

Start Encounter/Innovus using cockpit.

You will see an xterm and the Innovus GUI appear. The xterm contains the console for Innovus. While
the GUI looks fancy, you will be using the console more than you think. Make sure that it remains
accessible and visible at all times1 . Figure 1 shows the main Innovus window with the most important
functions highlighted2 .

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You could also start Innovus from the command line by changing into the encounter directory and running the
command
cds innovus innovus
In this case, the xterm you start Innovus from will act as your console. Dont use a & character to put the process
in the background, as this will suspend Innovus. If you accidentally do this, you could use the fg command to
resume.
2
Innovus uses tool tips: if you leave the cursor on buttons for a short while, a label will appear.

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Figure 1: Important elements of a fresh Innovus window.

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2.1 Terminology

Before we start to explore the example design, some notes about the terminology used in Innovus:

Module Is equivalent to the entities in VHDL or modules in Verilog. It contains a level of design
hierarchy.
Standard Cell / StdCell Building block that implements a logic gate (and, or, flip flop, latch, etc.) and
will be placed (aligned in rows) in the core area.
Macro-cell / Block Building block that is typically larger and more complex than the standard cells.
This could be a sub-design that has been completed previously or a full-custom block like the
RAMs used in this example. Typically placed somewhere in the core area.
Pad Building block that is used to connect the core of the chip to the external world. Placed in the IO
region around the core.
Cell [Type] A building block available from a library, e.g. AN2B1S, ND2, SHKA65 8192X32X1CM16
etc. Note: Also used for Verilog modules defined in your design netlist.
Instance One specific copy of a building block that is part of your design netlist. Identified by a
unique instance name, e.g. i top/U68 or i top/DataxD reg 0 ]. Note: Also used for
Verilog modules used in your design netlist.
Row All standard cells have the same height. This allows them to be placed in (horizontal) rows. In
back-end terms, a row defines a region where standard cells can be placed.
Term A logical connection point (port) of a module or cell, e.g. the buffer BUF1 has two terminals
(I and O).
[Inst] Pin A physical connection point/shape of an instance, i.e. where the router contacts the in-
stance.
Net The logical/signal interconnection between instances.
Special Net All instances need to be connected to power and ground. Technically these connections
are also nets, but they are treated differently from regular nets. These nets are called special
nets.

2.2 Basic Shortcuts

Although most of the functionality is available through menus, you will realize that keyboard (mouse)
shortcuts make life much easier. You can press b to view (and edit) the keyboard shortcuts. The
following is a short list of the most popular shortcuts:
z : Zoom In
Z : Zoom Out
f : Zoom to fit the design
q : Query properties of selected object
u : Undo
b : Edit keyboard bindings

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 Figure 2: Innovus in floorplaning mode with a design loaded.

2.3 Exploring the Design

Now let us restore a completed database. We use a design specifically created for these exercises.
However, it uses the same technology and shares the same dimensions as our student projects.

Student Task 2:
Select FileRestore Design... from the menu. The design is stored in Innovus own
format, it is stored as filter chip final.enc inside the save directory.

After loading the design you will be in the Floorplan View of Innovus (see Figure 2). We will use this
view mostly during floorplaning. This view shows you the power connections for the entire chip and
all instances with a placement status of FIXED, i.e. pads, pre-placed macro-cells (the RAM) and
standard cells that are part of a clock tree (including the registers).

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 Student Task 3:
To get an impression how small the chip is let us try to measure the chip dimensions. First
we will have to select the ruler tool by either clicking on its icon (fourth from left in the
second row) on the tool panel of Innovus, or by calling the function by its keyboard shortcut
k. The units are in micrometers. How long is one side of the chip?
l=
Note that you can zoom in by using the right mouse button, pan by pushing SHIFT-RIGHTMOUSE
and moving the cursor, and you can remove all the rulers by pressing SHIFT-K. To see (or
change) keyboard shortcuts go to the menu Design Preferences... You will see a
button called Binding Key, that will enable you to view or modify the keyboard short-cuts, or
simply press its shortcut b. You can auto-adjust the view to fit the design by pushing f
When you look at the chip, you realize that the area used for the pads is not very small.
The remaining area in the center is called core area. How many percent larger would the
core area be, if there were no pads?
Atotal /Acore =
The RAM block is placed in the upper left corner. What is the area of such a RAM module?
In this example each RAM holds 8192 words of 32 bit each. What is the bit density in this
technology, in other words how many m2 are required to store one bit?
A=
=

Normally, we would use the Floorplan View to start our design. The design we have loaded, however,
is completely finished some parts are just not visible yet. To see all standard cell placements and
the routing you will have to change the view to Physical (see Figure 3).

Student Task 4:
Click on the Physical View button on the right side of the Innovus toolbar.

The physical view will literally show you a jungle of connections. You will need to zoom in really
close to differentiate individual connections. A modern IC manufacturing technology provides several
metal layers for routing, the technology we use for semester projects has eight. Each metal layer is
separated by an insulating layer. In this way separate signals can be carried on different metal layers.
To move a signal from one metal layer to another a special connection named via is used. Each via
connects two adjacent metal layers. In this technology multiple vias can also be stacked (placed on
top of each other), so that it is possible to move from the top most metal (Metal-8) to the bottom most
metal layer (Metal-1) at one point3 .
There are several colored squares on the right hand side of the Innovus window. Each square shows
the color of an object category in the design. The object category is written on the left side of the
colored square. On the right side of the squares you can see two (red) check boxes. The first check
box is used to toggle the visibility of an object category. Let us take the object category Net. This
category contains all normal signal connections between the standard cells. Click on the first check
box so that the box is not selected (the box turns gray). You will see all interconnections disappear.
You can now see the placement of the standard cells on the chip. The second box determines
3
Note that there will be 7 separate vias that are placed on top of each other for this to happen. This will block all
in-between metal layers (Metal-2, Metal-3, ..., Metal-7) at this point as well.

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Figure 3: Innovus in physical mode with a design loaded.

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whether or not you will be able to select objects belonging to that category. Remember that you can
only select objects that are visible. We will not explain all object categories (you can consult the user
manual for that). The category Instance will control all instances in your design, and Special Net
controls all power connections (that are treated differently from signal interconnections).

Student Task 5:
There are eight metal layers in this process. Typically, each metal layer is used predomi-
nantly in one direction (either horizontal or vertical). For the metal layers 1 to 4, find out in
which direction it is running.
You will need the section Wire&Via in the layer control area on the right to switch the
physical layers on and off. You can also use the keyboard shortcuts 1,2,. . . ,8 to toggle the
visibility of Metal-1 to Metal-8. The via layers are automatically switched on if both adjacent
metal layers are toggled on using the keyboard shortcuts.
M4
M3
M2
M1
When looking at the individual metal layers, do you notice any exceptions in the direction of
the wiring? Why or why not?
Follow the power connections of the RAM. On which metal layer is the connection, where
does it connect to?
Hint: You can switch off the visibility of the majority of connections (Net) to see only the
power connections (Net-Power, Net-Ground). You might also want to toggle the pins of the
RAM block (Cell-Pin Shapes).

Switch on a single metal layer in vertical direction, e.g. M6. You should notice a very
distinctive, regular pattern all across the chip (you need to make the Net visible again if
you have switched it off before). You probably have noticed that the main power distribution
grid is on layers M7 and M8 with very wide tracks on M8. Yet it clearly also seems to
influence the routing on other metal layers. Can you explain this?

Besides the vertical pattern, it seems that there are other areas with almost no routing. To
analyze the source of this, switch to the amoeba view on the top right of the main window.
Besides the RAM block and the pads, there is one large block called i filter top. You
can select it and click on the group (G) and ungroup (shift-G) buttons to get more detailed
view of your design. Can you now explain these areas with almost no wiring on the metal
layers?

A very helpful feature of Innovus is the Design Browser than can be accessed through the Tools

Design Browser, or by clicking on its icon on the upper part of the Innovus toolbar.
This tool allows you to browse through the logical hierarchy of the design and lets you highlight and
select instances and nets. For each hierarchy, the number of terminals (pins), nets and standard cells

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 RamWE_S
RamTest_TI
DataIn_DI 14 32 RamWD_D
permutator SHKA65_8192X32X1CM16
DataInReq_SI RamAddr_D
DataInAck_SO r256x72tb300xo
RamRD_D
32

ScanEn_TI

filter_stage0

filter_stage1

filter_stage2

filter_stage7

permutator
Clk_CI
32 32 14 DataOut_DO
0
Reset_RBI

DataOutAck_SI

DataOutReq_SO

filter
fiter_top
filter_chip

DataIn_DI 32
permutator
64
64 64 Next_DI
Prev_DI 32
LUT 32 32

D_DI 32
32 D_DO
A_DI 10 32
LUT
pipe_stage0

pipe_stage1

pipe_stage7

32

filter_stage pipe_stage

Figure 4: Schematic diagram of the filter design.

within the hierarchy will be shown. In addition the number of sub-modules will be given. By clicking
on the + sign you can expand further hierarchies. Selecting one or more objects will cause them to
be cross highlighted on the main Innovus window as well.

Student Task 6:
The following drawing is a simplified block diagram of the filter design which is used as
the example design for this training. The top-level filter top consists of a data memory,
and the main operational block filter. The filter is built from eight filter stages
and some control logic for the memory. There are permutators at the input and output,
which were introduced when scaling up an old design to fill a chip with the same dimensions
as used for the current semester projects.
Use the hierarchy browser to identify the individual components of the filter. What is
the instance name of the memory? What type of cell drives most bits of the RAM address
(setup proper view, track the wires)?

Figure 4 shows the schematic and Figure 5 is a close-up of the filter design we have just loaded.

It shows one standard cell (ND2) with three pins (A, B and Z).

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Figure 5: Close-up of the filter design loaded in Innovus.

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 Figure 6: The Innovus design browser.

The instance name is i filter top/U69. You can find this instance with the design browser as
well (cf. Figure 6).

Student Task 7:
Find the above mentioned instance in your design. You can use the design browser as
shown in the figure.

To find instances it is also possible to use wild cards (* and ?: the * matches any number of
characters, a ? can be used to match exactly one character. ).
It is also possible to find other objects than just Instances. By clicking on the box near Find in the
Design Browser window, it is possible to choose between Instance, Net, Group and Cell.
By clicking the Zoom Selected button you can easily zoom to the selected instance. You can use the
F9 button to dim the remaining elements on the screen, enabling you to see the selected compo-
nents much more easily. There are 2 different dimming settings, pressing F9 two more times will
revert back to the original display setting.
In the figure above, two special nets VCC and GND are shown. These special nets follow through
the rows where the cells are placed and assure each cell is connected to them.
The following is the line in the Verilog netlist that describes the same cell. This is the Verilog netlist
obtained from Synposys DC which has originally been imported into Innovus. It is located at synop-
sys/netlists/filter top.v, feel free to also have a look at the file itself.
ND2M16WA U69 ( .A(RamTest_TI), .B(RamWrite_D[2]), .Z(n46) );

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ND2M16WA is the cell, U69 is the instance name, RamTest TI, RamWrite D[2], and n46 are net
names. A, B and Z are pins of the cell. Note that there are no pins and connections for special nets
in this description. The attribute field4 at the lower left of the main Innovus window reports some
information about the selected object. Also note that the cell name is not exactly the same in the
netlist obtained using Synopsys DC. Innovus can resize the cells depending on the load. In this case
the load was significantly smaller than Synopsys DC expected it to be. This is one of the reasons
why the area figures obtained through Synopsys DC should only be treated as rough estimates.

Student Task 8:
Use the Design Browser to select all nets that form the clock tree in this design. The nets
have a name that starts with Clk. Can you see the different clock tree levels (L1, L2, etc.) ?
Check both: the Instances and the Nets. How many levels are there ?

To get additional information about an instance or a net, you can open up the attribute editor. Select
an instance, and open the attribute editor by pressing q. You can also double click on the instance.
In addition to the attribute editor, all connections of the instance will be highlighted. The source of a
connection is denoted by a O and the sinks by X.
Obviously, it is necessary to be able to find components of your design within Innovus. However,
often you need more than just finding individual components, but you need to be able to see their
connectivity to the next few components. We examine one option to do so with the next task.

Student Task 9:
Use the Design Browser to find pad DataOut DO 0. Select it and click on the Show Cone
Schematic button. In the new window, you should be able to see this instance with its
name, all its pins, etc. You can switch the visibility of the pin names, . . . in the Preference
window.
You can right-click on the DO pin and select Open Fan-In Cone. This should add the mul-
tiplexer driving this output pin to the schematic. You can also right-click on the component
instance to open the fan-in off all input pins.
Using this newly acquired knowledge, explore further to find the use of this multiplexer. It is
not a functional part of the circuit, but has been inserted later on. What does it do?

Let us investigate the standard cells in more detail. All cells of a standard cell library have the same
height. Some standard cells contain more (or larger) transistors than others, which requires more
area. These cells are wider than others.
Student Task 10:
Determine the height of the standard cells for this technology. h =
Find a INV (inverter), SDFEQR (scanable flip-flop with reset), ND2 (2-input NAND gate),
and OR2 (2-input OR gate) in the example design and compare their sizes. You can use
the Design Browser to find cells of this type and then use Zoom Selected to find it in the
main window. In order to get a meaningful comparison, choose similar sizes (e.g., M2W for
the logic gates and M1WA for the flip-flop).

4
if it is not visible, you can enable it under Options Show/hide windows Property.

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 INV
SDFEQR
ND2
OR2

Most modern standard cell libraries contain cells with different driving strengths. These cells are
identical in functionality but have different output stages and are suited to drive different capacitive
loads. The drive strength is a normalized value that shows how much load a given standard cell can
drive at the same speed.
In the technology we use for this training, there are (at least) 4 different drive strengths for all functions.
The cell names reflect both the function and the drive strength. There are no accepted standards for
naming the cells, and every standard cell manufacturer chooses a different naming scheme5 .
There is more information hidden in the name of a cell. For umcL65, the name consists of four
fields:
field 1 (cell index): high speed (H), low power (L), scan (S)
field 2 (cell function name): e.g., ND2 for a 2-input NAND
field 3 (cell driving strength index): M0, M1, M2, ...
field 4 (device type): e.g., W,WA for low-threshold and low-leakage
Example: SDFEQRM1WA describes a scan-enabled (S), D-type flip-flop (DF) with enable signal (E),
single output (Q) and reset (R). It has drive strength 1 (M1) and is designed for the low-threshold,
low-leakage process (WA).
All the details about the cells can be found in the process documentation. The databook for the
standard cell for umcL65 can be found at docs/stdcell low vt b03 databook.pdf, relative to
the root of your cockpit directory. On page 21 there is a more detailed explanation of the cell naming
conventions, but there is also the definition of how the setup time has been determined or a listing of
the power dissipation for every cell, depending on the load.

Student Task 11: Let us have a look at the 2-input NAND gate. For how many different drive
strengths is it available?
Assume that the output of a NAND gate is connected to five 2-input NAND gates of drive strength
M2. You want a propagation delay of less than 0.042 ns. Which drive strength would you choose?
Why?

Although this gives you a rough estimate, it does not account for the capacitance of the wiring. The
capacitance of the wiring is quite often not negligible, but hopefully you have still obtained some rough
idea of the capability of different drive strengths.

Student Task 12: One of the few details missing in the databook is the size of the cells. In order
to get an impression, complete the following table and compare the sizes.
Cell driving strengthmin size (m2 ) driving strengthmax size (m2 )
MUX2 M1 A = 3.6 M12 A = 8.64
INV A= A=
ND2 A= A=

5
Using a M, D or X followed by a number is pretty common practice, i.e. AN2D4 or AN2X4

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2.4 Further Help

This training will only explain the basic functionality of Innovus, for additional help please use the
Help menu. Note that each sub-window has its own Help button. Pressing this button will show you
directly the relevant help page.
Most of the commands that can be used in the command line window have a man page that can be
accessed by issuing the command
man command_name

Sometimes, you just need to know the command options, and are not looking for a lengthy description.
In such cases use
help command_name

to get brief usage information. If you are not running Innovus, but would like to access the help
system, you can also start the Innovus help (which will displayed in a web browser) by issuing the
following command from a shell by typing:
cds_innovus cdnshelp

2.5 A Last Note

Back-end design is an iterative process. The decisions you will make at the beginning of back-end
design may have a profound impact on the outcome. However, you will not always be able to predict
this. You will have to complete individual stages of back-end design (floorplaning, placement, routing
etc) and then assess the quality of the result. If you are not satisfied with this result you will have to
repeat the stage or even the entire process. This is normal, be prepared for it. Notice that each time
you repeat a certain stage, you will gain more experience and will be able to work faster.

E You are done with Exercise 2. Discuss your results with an assistant.
E

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