Free Interview Questions & Answers |Physical Design

Physical design is the process of turning a design into manufacturable geometries. It transforms a circuit description into the physical layout, which describes the position of cells and routes for the interconnections between them. The purpose of the physical design of VLSI chips is to find a layout with minimal area, further, the total wire length has to be minimized. After the physical design is completed, the layout must be fully verified to ensure correct electrical and logical functionality. Some problems found during physical verification can be tolerated if their impact on chip yield is negligible. Therefore, at this stage, layout changes are usually performed manually by experienced design engineers.