September 12, 2003
Version 1.0 of GDSII
Chip Data Replacement Sighted
By Peter Clarke, Semiconductor Business News |
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Version 1.0 of GDSII
Chip Data Replacement Sighted
MONTEREY, California -- A replacement for the
ubiquitous GDSII chip description data format
is becoming imminent with an introductory event
and party organized by the Semiconductor Equipment
and Materials International (SEMI) industry
body scheduled to take place September 30, at
the Monterey Marriott Hotel, Monterey.
GDSII, invented 27 years ago, is the interchange
format between chip design and mask data preparation
that has been used on the majority of integrated
circuits built since the format's introduction.
However, as chips have increased in complexity
the need has grown to try and produce a more
compact, capable and efficient means of describing
a chip.
With this GDSII replacement capability, the
SEMI Data Path Task Force has been able to achieve
10 to 50 times data compaction, while substantially
improving the extensibility, bit-efficiency
and portability of this hierarchical geometric
data interchange format, SEMI claims.
At the introductory event, sponsored by Cadence
Design Systems, Mentor Graphics, Micronic Laser
Systems, Numerical Technologies, Synopsys, Si2
and SEMI, the IC Design/Photomask Data Path
Task Force will release for final voter approval
the Version 1.0 replacement for GDSII, SEMI
said.
SBN sister site EEDesign has found out more
about the format, including the name, Next Stream
Format or NSF, and writes about it here.
