At ARF Design, our Physical Design services are the crucial link between your digital design and its realization in silicon. We specialize in transforming complex RTL (Register Transfer Level) designs into optimized, manufacturable layouts that meet stringent performance, power, and area (PPA) requirements. Our team of experienced physical design engineers ensures that your designs are not only functional but also optimized for cost-effective and reliable manufacturing.
We offer a comprehensive range of Physical Design services that cover every step of the back-end design process. Starting with floorplanning and partitioning, we meticulously plan the layout to optimize for power, performance, and area. Our services also include power planning, clock tree synthesis (CTS), placement, routing, timing analysis, and signal integrity checks, culminating in a final layout that is ready for tape-out.
Effective floor planning is the foundation of a successful physical design. Our engineers carefully plan the layout of your design, considering factors such as block placement, power grid design, and congestion management. This step ensures that your design is optimized for area and performance while maintaining a smooth path to timing closure.
Power management is a critical aspect of modern VLSI designs, especially for power-sensitive applications. We design robust power grids and employ advanced power management techniques to ensure your design meets its power targets. Our power planning services include IR drop analysis, electromigration checks, and the implementation of power gating, multi-voltage designs, and other low-power strategies.
For complex protocols and interfaces, we offer custom Verification IP (VIP) development and integration. Our VIPs are designed to accurately model industry-standard protocols such as PCIe, USB, Ethernet, MIPI, and more. By integrating these VIPs into your verification environment, we ensure that your design's interaction with external interfaces is thoroughly tested and validated.
A well-designed clock tree is essential for meeting timing requirements and minimizing clock skew. Our Clock Tree Synthesis (CTS) services ensure that clocks are distributed evenly throughout your design, with minimal skew and jitter. We use advanced tools and algorithms to balance clock distribution and optimize for power and performance.
Placement and routing are critical steps in the physical design process, where the logical design is mapped onto the physical layout. Our engineers use state-of-the-art placement and routing tools to optimize the layout for timing, power, and area. We perform detailed routing, taking into account signal integrity, crosstalk, and other physical effects that can impact the final design.
Achieving timing closure is one of the most challenging aspects of physical design. Our team excels at optimizing designs to meet timing constraints across all process, voltage, and temperature (PVT) corners. We perform thorough Static Timing Analysis (STA) to identify and resolve critical timing paths, ensuring that your design meets its performance goals.
As designs become more complex and operate at higher speeds, signal integrity becomes increasingly important. We conduct comprehensive signal integrity and crosstalk analysis to ensure that your design is free from noise issues, voltage drops, and other parasitic effects that could compromise its performance. Our engineers implement strategies to mitigate these issues, ensuring a robust and reliable design.
Our Physical Design services include Design for Manufacturability (DFM) checks to ensure that your design can be produced efficiently and reliably in a manufacturing environment. We work closely with foundries to adhere to DFM guidelines, optimizing your design for yield and reducing the risk of manufacturing defects.
The final step in the physical design process is tape-out, where your design is finalized and prepared for manufacturing. We generate the GDSII (Graphic Data System II) file, which contains the layout data that will be used to produce the photomasks for semiconductor fabrication. Our team ensures that all design rules are met and that your GDSII file is error-free and ready for tape-out.
Our commitment to your success doesn't end with tape-out. We offer post-tape-out support services, including silicon bring-up, debugging, and performance tuning. We work closely with your team and the foundry to address any issues that arise during the manufacturing process, ensuring that your design meets its specifications and is ready for mass production.
Our Physical Design services are driven by a deep understanding of the intricacies of modern VLSI design, combined with a commitment to delivering high-quality, manufacturable solutions. With a proven track record of successful tape-outs, we are your trusted partner in transforming digital designs into silicon-ready products that meet the highest standards of performance, reliability, and efficiency.