Design rules checking (DRC) is the area of Electronic Design Automation software that concerns itself with checking if rules set by physical manufacturers of chips are satisfied in particular chip designs. Electronic design automation (EDA) is the category of tools for designing and producing electronic systems ranging from printed circuit boards (PCBs) to integrated circuits. ...

DRC software usually takes as input chip design in GDSII standard format. GDSII is a database format, which in the integrated circuit industry has been the de facto standard for IC layout data exchange for more than two decades. ...

Design Rules are expressed as mathematical formulas with boolean, connectivity, and geometrical operations taking as arguments layers of material in chips as boolean functions and producing as outputs various violations found in design. Examples of operations: AND, NOT, CONNECTED, INSIDE, EXTERNAL. History Main article: History of mathematics In addition to recognizing how to count concrete objects, prehistoric peoples also recognized how to count abstract quantities, like time -- days, seasons, years. ... A formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically (as in a mathematical or chemical formula) or a general relationship between quantities. ... Boolean Dealing only with the two logical values: true (1) and false (0). ... Connectivity is the property of a device such as a PC, peripheral, PDA, mobile phone, robot, home appliance, or car that enables it to be connected, generally to a PC or another device without the need of a PC - autonomously. ... Geometry (from the Greek words Ge = earth and metro = measure) is the branch of mathematics first introduced by Theaetetus dealing with spatial relationships. ... Boolean Dealing only with the two logical values: true (1) and false (0). ... In general, a function is part of an answer to a question about why some object or process occurred in a system that evolved or was designed with some goal. ...

Design Rules are set by physical manufacturers like TSMC, IBM, Intel and significantly different for each of them. They change with every major improvement in manufacturing process. Particularly with every level of scaling (further miniaturization) Design Rules become significantly more complex. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Limited (Traditional Chinese: 台灣積體電路製造股份有限公司, abbrev. ... International Business Machines Corporation (IBM, or colloquially, Big Blue) (NYSE: IBM) (incorporated June 15, 1911, in operation since 1888) is headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company manufactures and sells computer hardware, software, and services. ... Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) (founded 1968) is a US-based multinational corporation that is best known for designing and manufacturing microprocessors and specialized integrated circuits. ...

Every DRC product defines some language to describe the operations needed to be performed in DRC.

Major products in DRC area of EDA are:

• Calibre by Mentor Graphics having 80% (?) of the market. Calibre replaced Dracula in mid-1990s.
• Dracula by Cadence Design Systems having 10% (?) of the market. Although Calibre dominates Dracula still has small but persistant market share.

Some semiconductor companies have their own proprietary DRC software. See also AMPLE Falcon Framework External links Mentor Graphics website Silicon Valley InfoZone - Mentor Graphics Categories: Corporation stubs | EDA companies | Companies based in Oregon | Companies traded on NASDAQ ... Cadence Design Systems, Inc (Nasdaq: CDN, NYSE: CDN) is an electronic design automation (EDA) software company, founded in 1988 by the merger of SDA Systems and ECAD. As of 2004, Cadence is the worlds largest supplier of electronic design technologies and engineering services. ...

DRC is very resource-intense. Customers often have to wait up to a week to get the result of DRC check for modern designs.

DRC products are used primarily by semiconductor companies developing chip designs. But small part of the market is comprised from companies developing standard cell libraries to verify compliance of their products with Design Rules. A semiconductor is a material that is an insulator at very low temperature, but which has a sizable electrical conductivity at room temperature. ...

Estimated annual sales of DRC software are in $200-$300 million range.