News

What Was Tested

• Nodes: GlobalFoundries 22FDX (22 nm FD-SOI), 12LP and 12LP+ (12 nm FinFET).
• Designs: 42 reference designs across the three nodes, each with Calibre results for the same GDS serving as the golden reference.
• Method: LVR ran the full foundry DRC rule deck on each design. Its results database was then compared marker by marker against the Calibre results, rule by rule.

The comparison is at the level of individual violation markers, not rule counts. LVR had to produce the same markers Calibre produced, not merely execute the same rules.

What "100% Match" Means

Two numbers define the match, and both are 100% on all 42 designs:

• Recall (coverage): every violation Calibre flags, LVR flags too. No misses.
• Precision: every violation LVR flags, Calibre flags too. No false positives.

A marker counts as matched only when it carries the same rule name and lands on the same geometry. A tool that over-reports would score well on recall and poorly on precision; a tool that under-reports would do the reverse. LVR does neither on these designs.

Why This Matters for Design Teams

Most DRC runs in a project are not signoff runs. They are the dozens of iterations a block goes through before it is clean, and today each of those iterations competes for the same expensive signoff seats as the final run.

LVR gives those iterations a tool that returns the same answer as signoff, on a standard Linux workstation, without tying up a signoff license. The final signoff run still happens on the foundry-certified tool. What changes is that it stops being a surprise: a block that is clean in LVR should arrive at signoff clean.

LVR is positioned as a pre-signoff verification engine, a complement to certified signoff, not a replacement for it.

About LVR

LVR is Ramtera's physical verification engine: DRC, LVS, ERC, XOR and parasitic extraction (PEX) in one tool. It was built over six years in Bangalore and executes the complete foundry rule deck, written in LRF (Layout Rule Format), Ramtera's rule language.

• Runs multithreaded on Ubuntu, Red Hat and macOS, driven by a Tcl command file.
• Writes results in standard results-database formats, so existing marker browsers and debug flows read them unchanged.
• Debug overlays integrate with Cadence Virtuoso through SKILL.
• LVS and ERC run on the same engine; LVS has passed on a GlobalFoundries 22FDX reference design.
• Delivered as a container that runs entirely inside the customer's network.

Try It on a Block You Have Already Signed Off

The quickest proof is your own design. If you tape out on 22FDX, 12LP or 12LP+, we will provide LVR as a container you run on your own machines, so your GDS and rule decks never leave your network. Run it on a block you have already signed off and compare the two results yourself.

Contact: Dr. Sameer P, Founder and CEO, Ramtera Inc. Phone and WhatsApp: +91-7259103580, or use the contact form on this site.

About Ramtera

Ramtera Inc. is an EDA company incorporated in the US with R&D in Bangalore, India. It builds two products: LVR for physical verification and PRE for place and route. Together, on GlobalFoundries nodes, they form a netlist-to-signoff flow. Ramtera holds five granted patents, and LVR and PRE are registered trademarks of Ramtera.

Calibre is a trademark of Siemens Industry Software Inc. GlobalFoundries, 22FDX, 12LP and 12LP+ are trademarks of GlobalFoundries Inc. or its affiliates. Ramtera is not affiliated with or endorsed by Siemens or GlobalFoundries. The results described here are Ramtera's own measurements.