5.

4 Electrical-Rule Checkers
Geometrical design rules ensure that the circuit will be manufactured correctly by checking
the relative position, or syntax, of the final layout. However, there is nothing to ensure that
this circuit will work. Correct functionality is left to the simulators and verifiers that
manipulate circuit activity and behavior. Nevertheless, there is a middle ground between
simple layout syntax and complex behavioral analysis, and it is the domain of electrical-rule
checkers, or ERC.
Electrical rules are those properties of a circuit that can be determined from the geometry and
connectivity without understanding the behavior. For example, the estimated power
consumption of a circuit can be determined by evaluating the requirements of each device
and trying to figure out how many of the devices will be active at one time. From this
information, the power-carrying lines can be checked to see whether they have adequate
capacity. In addition to power estimation, there are electrical rules to detect incorrect
transistor ratios, short-circuits, and isolated or badly connected parts of a circuit. All
these checks examine the network and look for inconsistencies. Thus, whereas design-rule
checking does syntax analysis on the layout, electrical-rule checking does syntax analysis
on the network.

5.4.1 Power Estimation

There are several reasons to watch the power consumption of a circuit, such as limited powercarrying capacity on wires, total power limits in a single package, and cost of system
manufacturing. As integrated circuits grow in size and complexity, there will be an increasing
need to watch for power problems.
Metal wires that are required to carry too much power suffer metal migration, in which the
atoms move within the wire, leaving a break in the conductor. In order to prevent this
phenomenon, the wire must be widened to reduce its current density. Typical process rules
specify the number of amps per unit width of wire. Another limit is the total amount of
power, and therefore heat, that a single packaged design can dissipate before it destroys itself
and its package. Standard IC packages can handle dissipations up to a few watts. However,
new packaging designs employ heat fins and other cooling methods to allow greater power
dissipation.

Power estimation is dependent on the

fabrication process. In nMOS, every depletion
transistor that appears in a pullup
configuration consumes power when pulled
down to ground (see Fig. 5.11). Estimating the
number of these pullups that may be pulled
down allows an overall static power
consumption to be derived. This estimation
can use other information in the network; for
example, the operation of clock signals and
the interconnection of circuitry that can be
determined to mutually exclude certain
pulldowns. If a clock with known phases
appears on the pulldown gate or on some
control of that gate then it can be determined
which pullups will be active in
nonoverlapping times. Figure 5.12 illustrates
two pullups that will not be active at the same
time and can therefore be estimated to use the FIGURE 5.11 nMOS power consumption: (a)
nMOS depletion transistor in pullup
power of only one pullup. Figure 5.13
illustrates two coupled pullups that can also configuration (b) Pullup and pulldown.
be guaranteed never to be active at the same
time. When all of these heuristics have been
exhausted, it must be assumed that the
remaining pullups are active since their state
is data-dependent. This analysis assumes
static (or low-speed) power consumption. For
high-speed operation, a CMOS type of
analysis must also be considered.

FIGURE 5.12 Clocking considerations in

power estimation.

FIGURE 5.13 Coupling considerations in

power estimation.

Power estimation for CMOS is different because there is usually no dissipation during stable
states. Rather, CMOS circuits consume power when they switch, with the power
consumption being proportional to the total load capacitance and the switching
frequency. Power estimation is therefore a matter of determining the capacitance of nodes
within a circuit and the rate at which the potential on these nodes changes. Power estimation
for CMOS is often much more difficult than that for static nMOS.

On printed-circuit boards it is also important to determine power consumption; however,

all the power-use information is described in the specification of the individual IC packages.
These packages have minimum and maximum power consumption, so it is safe to sum the
maximum values to determine the maximum board usage. Cooling considerations are
difficult to predict. Many methods have been employed, ranging from simply allowing
enough air space above the board to using freon cooling pipes running near the surface. What
good is the most sophisticated electronic circuit if it burns up when plugged in?

5.4.2 Transistor-Ratio Checkers

When doing VLSI layout, it is necessary to scale transistors so that they function effectively,
relative to each other. In order to achieve proper logic transition, a threshold voltage
must be crossed and the speed at which this happens is determined by the relative scales
or ratios of the driving components. The problem is particularly important in nMOS design,
because an imbalance exists between rising and falling transition times. To ensure that such a
circuit will operate correctly, an analysis of the relative transistor ratios must be done.

An isolated nMOS inverter requires a pullup-topulldown size ratio of at least 4 : 1 which means
that the length-to-width scale of the pullup must be
four or more times that of the pulldown (see Fig.
5.14). When the pulldown is a series of components,
the ratios of the latter are additive. When parallel
transistors form a pulldown, however, each
individual transistor must completely account for a
proper ratio (see Fig. 5.15). This is because of the
simple rule that every path from power to ground
must have correct ratios of pullup and pulldown.
FIGURE 5.14 nMOS transistor ratios.
The ratio is the length (polysilicon size)
divided by the width (diffusion size).

FIGURE 5.15 Series and parallel transistor ratios.

As a final rule in nMOS transistor-ratio checking, the nature of the pulldown gate must be
considered. Gates that are driven directly from a pullup are considered to have a
restored signal, and follow the rules for sizing in the previous paragraph. However,
gates that are driven through one or more pass transistors have unrestored signals, and
the ratio rule must be doubled [Mead and Conway]. Figure 5.16 illustrates this
requirement, showing that the pullup on the right of Fig. 5.16(b) must change its ratio due to
the nature of the pulldown gate signal. These rules are fairly straightforward to implement by
traversing the circuit network and evaluating the appropriate properties. It is necessary to
know the nature of all external signals to determine the restorative nature of each component.
For safety, they should be assumed to be unrestored, although proper modular design dictates
that all generated values should be restored.

FIGURE 5.16 Restored and unrestored transistor ratios: (a) Restored (b) Unrestored.

5.4.3 Short-Circuits and Isolated Circuits

A short-circuit is a path between any two unconnected nets

such as from power to ground. Detection of direct paths is
simply a process of ensuring that the nets are distinct. Often this
is done during node extraction, when a simple test of the net
numbers will tell the truth. Also important is a check to ensure
that no transistor gates power and ground signals. Although this
configuration is not a static short-circuit, it does not make
FIGURE 5.17 Short-circuit
electrical sense and is easy to detect (see Fig. 5.17).
configurations of power to
ground.
Another static analysis is the detection of circuitry that is not properly connected. For
example, when the input to a component is not connected to other parts of the circuit, it is
said to be a floating input. This condition can be detected by propagating external inputs
through the circuit, marking all reachable elements. When an input signal connects to the gate
of a transistor, it indicates that the source and drain of the transistor are properly controlled. If
other active signals appear on the source or drain end of that transistor, then the other end will
be active too. By propagating the power, ground, input, and clock signals through the circuit,
it is possible to check for incorrect output drive, inconsistencies of signal specifications,
unconnected circuit elements, and much more. Exceptions must be allowed for artwork,
which is not intended to be part of the circuit, and should not be flagged as isolated layout.

5.4.4 Miscellaneous Electrical Rules

There is an unending number of specialized electrical rules. When two output signals connect
such that their values combine, they are called tied outputs. This may be purposeful, but it
may also be an error. Microwave circuit boards require that the wires be tapered to prevent
incorrect impedance conditions. Some design environments limit the number of components
that an output signal can drive (fan-out limitation) or the number of input lines that a
component can accept (fan-in limitation).
All the electrical rules mentioned here can be checked at one time as the circuit network
is traversed. Thus a single electrical-rule checking program is often used to check these
and other circuit properties [Baker and Terman]. Such a tool can take a unified approach
to checking by reducing everything to constraints on the circuit network [Karplus]. Since
electrical rules tend to be specific to a particular design environment, they should be easily
tailorable. The use of rule-based systems allows electrical rules to be updated easily for any
given design environment and even allows the rule checker to focus its attention on the
sensitive parts of a circuit [De Man et al.].
ELETROMIGRATION:

At the high current densities typical in thin-film conductors on integrated circuits, there is
significant momentum transfer from the electrons to the atoms. The microstructure of the
metallization leads to the consequent atomic flow being non-uniform, and damage results in
the form of voids or hillocks. Our work focuses on the interactions of microstructure,
electromigration damage and failure.

SEM micrograph showing voids

and hillocks