A technology migration method using rectangle-based layout conversion

This paper proposes a new and efficient method for layout migration. In the method, we achieve technology retargeting by optimizing objects and handling hierarchical structure. Circuit elements in the layout are defined as objects. The objects are represented by a set of connected or overlapped rectangles. The object based process in hierarchical structure supports easy handling of circuit elements through the migration process. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method on actual layouts. The used layouts in the experiment include simple standard library cells and more complex hierarchical macro blocks composed of standard and custom cells.