SoftJin offering GDSII file compression technology
Posted by Sachin Garg on 22nd September 2005 | Permanent Link
EETimes: India’s SoftJin has announced a GDSII compression technology, GDSIIZIP, that it claims compresses the files by up to 20 times, about four to five times better than the commonly-used gzip utility available on Unix.
The size of GDSII files is growing exponentially. The increasing use of reticle enhancement techniques, new design-for-manufacture (DFM) and chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) fill have all contributed — and the problem is expected to become more serious below the 90-nanometer node.
The GDSIIZIP is targeted toward physical design and layout engineers in semiconductor firms involved in tapeout and/or post-layout processing of large IC designs, as well data preparation personnel in photomask shops and foundries.
The GDSIIZIP allows for structure-wise compression of GDSII files, which are further compressed individually using gzip, allowing selective compression. Also, the compressed layout data can be selectively de-compressed.
Oasis, a newer file format expected to eventually replace GDSII, represents data in a much more compressed format than GDSII. Softjin said GDSIIZIP can provide companies with compression relief until there is wider acceptance of Oasis.