Product Documentation
Voltus-Fi Custom Power Integrity Solution L User Guide
Product Version IC23.1, August 2023

3

Product Overview

Voltus-Fi-L Product Overview

Voltus-Fi-L provides the ability to perform IR drop and Electromigration (EM) analysis using an extracted view of the design. It uses the results of the simulation performed using the vavo-db or the parameter storage format (PSF) data.

The target designs include the analog, analog/mixed-signal (AMS) and custom digital designs of varying sizes that are created using Virtuoso.

This product is tightly integrated within Virtuoso. The results of the analyses are displayed on the Virtuoso layout. Voltus-Fi-L also generates text reports of the analyses and lets you query the analyses results to view specific violations on the layout. This is used to identify and debug regions of high IR drop and EM violations in the design. After analyzing the EMIR results, you can create power-grid views (PGVs) of the design block, which can then be used in Voltus for mixed-signal analysis.

Figure 3-1 Voltus-Fi-L Flow Within the Virtuoso Environment

The product also supports viewing of the IR drop and EM analysis results in the vsaplot utility. This utility opens independently of the Virtuoso environment and provides a high speed of visualization.

Voltus-Fi will be obsolete in the next base IC release. The “next-generation” solution, Voltus-XFi, is available in this release of Virtuoso. It offers significant improvements to the overall EM-IR flow, including a unified use model, simplified simulation setup, and faster loading of results. The Voltus-XFi license is backward compatible and can be used to run Voltus-Fi if needed.

The key product features are described below.

Key Product Features and Description

The following table lists the key features of Voltus-Fi-L.

Table 3-1 Product Features – Voltus-Fi-L

Feature Description

Viewing IR Drop Analysis Results

Signal net and power-rail IR drop analysis includes support for the following:

  • Solid shape highlighting
  • Querying results
  • The following plot types; peak and average IR drop, and peak, average, and RMS resistor current plots

For details, see the “IR Drop Analysis Results” chapter.

Viewing EM Analysis Results

Signal net and power-rail EM analysis includes support for the following:

  • Solid shape highlighting
  • Querying results
  • EM analysis types: peak, average, rms and AC-peak
  • Support for using text-based ICT file for specifying EM rules
  • Advanced EM rules with qrcTechFile for 20nm and below technologies.
  • The emDataFile.txt file is supported for backward compatibility in 28nm and above technologies.

For details, see “EM Analysis Results” chapter.

PGV Generation

Static and Dynamic PGV generation feature lets you create power-grid views (PGVs) of an analog design block that can be used in Voltus for mixed-signal analysis.

For details, see “Power-Grid View Creation” chapter.

LRP Support

Least-Resistive Path (LRP) analysis helps you identify weakly-connected instances in the design during early stages of power planning. It displays the worst IR drop violations and plots the LRP on demand for any node.

For details, see “IR Drop Analysis Results” chapter.

Viewing Results in vsaplot

The vsaplot utility is used to view the results of IR drop and EM analysis that is performed in Voltus-Fi-L.

The key benefits of viewing the results of IR drop and EM analysis in vsaplot are as follows:

  • No dependency on the Virtuoso layout
  • Increased speed of visualization

For details, see “Viewing Results in vsaplot or vfiplot” chapter.

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