A rule-based compactor for VLSI/CAD mask layout

A rule-based system, to be used in place of the conventional approaches using algorithms, is proposed to explore the feasibility of using expert system technology to automate the compaction process by reasoning about the layout design using the sophisticated expert rules contained in its knowledge base. It has been demonstrated that, given a process-independent mask layout, the design rules, user specified constraints, and circuit electrical requirements can be checked over and rearranged into an optimized state. The system considered consists of approximately 100 Kbytes of source code and contains 120 rules. The compactor is written in a combination of the Lisp and OPS5 languages.<
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