Design workflow management enhances SoC design quality and efficiency

Defining the workflow management system
GUC’s WFM system includes data management, library management, flow definition package, ticket execution environment, and quality control factor extraction, as shown in Figure 2.


The design team follows the procedures shown in Figure 3. At the project's start, the project leader checks the library and technology files into the library database, then defines the design name, job stages and version name in the data repository. At each stage, the project leader prepares the flow package with a ticket template.  Any member of the project team can checkout the ticket file from the repository and execute the specific task requested by project leader. When completed, the team can review design quality on WFM GUI.  If the quality meets the criteria, project members can check the results into the design database and continue to the next task.

When collaborating across different geographical regions, WFM automatically transfers design data to the other regions. A user checks the design data into the local WFM Design Database and WFM automatically sends and checks it into the other regions.


Flow definition package
To get consistent design quality across different projects, flow engineers can pre-implement the flow template (Figure 4). The main purpose of a WFM system is to let designers smoothly complete their jobs even when the designer is junior with limited experience. In the WFM system, there are collections of pre-developed flow definition packages. Each flow package represents a single execution step in the complete design flow. Each flow step could either be executed individually or combined with other flow steps to form a more complex flow. These flow packages are usually prepared by the flow engineers or senior design members and encapsulate valuable design know-how.  A flow package contains parameterized tool scripts, job control mechanism and associated quality control factors.

Flow engineers need prepare four actions for each flow step, as shown in Figure 5.  A “Pre-Check” action checks the inputted files for the job needs. Flow engineers also prepare EDA tool scripts for Job Execution action.  A “Post-Check” action checks the EDA tool’s error and report.  Then, a “QCF Extraction” action extracts QCF, Quality Control Factor. (Figure 6)