Santa Cruz, CA -- Artwork Conversion has made it possible to connect our very fast GDSII viewer, Qckvu, to output from DRC checkers.

The results of a DRC (design rule check) program is a large ASCII file that lists DRC violations and their locations/layers. With today's complex chips, a DRC run may generate thousands of errors, each of which must be investigated. Our IC design customers have requested a way to take the list of errors and use it to drive Qckvu - enabling them to quickly hop from error to error.

We're implementing this in two phases: first, we're building a simple file based command language that Qckvu will read and act on. Once this API is completed (we have implemented the first 10 commands ) we will then start writing "converters" from the DRC reports to this command line format.

This allows us to separate the API development from the various DRC formats out there. The DRC to command converter can be written in any convenient language - Perl, AWK, Java, lisp, C, C++, Python. Tcl/Tcl ... We expect that our customers will customize the converter to their own requirements.

Partners and Testers Sought

Because we are not experts in using DRC software, we are actively seeking those who wish to cooperate with us in developing the converters from the popular DRC formats to the Qckvu command syntax. We are interested in those who wish to connect DRC programs such as Dracula, Assura, Calibre and Hercules to Qckvu. If you are so interested, please contact Steve DiBartolomeo (contact info shown below)