Erica Brand
Cadence

Designing chips in 45nm processes requires more planning, extra analysis, and complex trade-offs to reduce die area while maintaining or gaining performance, yield, and reliability. Many of the challenges chip designers face are issues of either manufacturability or scale and complexity. These challenges can be tackled most effectively through an integrated, holistic approach that enables consistent inclusion of manufacturing data and delivers productivity gains for the entire chip design flow.

The daunting task of verifying, optimizing, and re-verifying whole chips is eased by the improving performance of verification software and can be effectively executed through planned hierarchy management. The ideal 45nm holistic approach considers addressing challenges and opportunities of the smaller process node at the architectural level, and throughout the chip design process, including test and packaging. This paper explains why accounting for manufacturability, variability, and complexity at the beginning and throughout your chips' design cycle is the best way to produce competitive products that best utilize the advantages of 45nm processes.