Virtuoso Studio: Streamlining the Design Review Process

16 Dec 2025 • 4 minute read

Our new AI-powered custom design solution, Virtuoso Studio, leverages our 30 years of industry knowledge and leadership, providing innovative features, reimagined infrastructure for unrivalled productivity, and new levels of integration that stretch beyond classic design boundaries. In this blog series, learn how the best analog design tools just got better to help you keep pace with your challenging design issues.

Design review is not a new topic for most design houses in the semiconductor industry. Each and every design project has to go through this cycle to ensure that the production quality is not compromised. Based on the specific needs of design projects, methodologies, and automation capacity, the design review process is laid out. In this blog, we will cover how to overcome challenges that can arise in the Design review process due to accessibility, maintenance, and relevance by using the Virtuoso-based design review feature. The key advantage of using the Virtuoso Studio design review flow is that it allows you to streamline and formalize the design review process, capture it alongside the design to keep it always in context, and provide ease of access to both the reviewer and the reviewee.

Virtuoso design review can help you deploy existing customers' checklist with capabilities to directly annotate the defects on the cellview and a provision to track the status of each of the annotated defects. There is also a provision to track all design review events and sort or filter them based on userDI, timestamp, type, etc.

Design review aims to bridge the communication channel between the reviewer and the reviewee, enforcing accountability, as all the changes made by either are recorded in the cellview. The Virtuoso design review feature is available for schematic and layout views separately, with a consistent use model and a common checklist file to support them on an individual basis.

Now that you have got some introduction to the design review flow, let’s talk about the flow in more detail, understanding each of the key steps involved.

Design Review Flow

The design review flow captures and records all communication between reviewers and designers when reviewing a cellview in Virtuoso Layout Suite and Virtuoso Schematic Editor. Design review helps in the consolidation and tracking of every event status change in the system for future reference. Design review supports the following flow:

Step 1 Reviewer Inspects the Cellview

The reviewer initiates a specific review by using a checklist that can be suitable for certain designs or customers. The reviewers create defect markers in a design to identify the spots for fixes.

Step 2 Designer Fixes the Defects

Designers analyze the markers and can choose to fix or ignore them. They can add comments for each defect in the design review editor. Designers can move the mouse over the defect markers on the canvas to see the cross halo in the navigator or annotation browser assistants. When all the defects are attended to or resolved, designers can close the review cycle with a pending sign off.

Step 3 Reviewer Signs Off the Design

Reviewers can review the fixes again and sign off the design. When a review is signed off, all its associated defects are automatically hidden.

Benefits of Using Design Review

Design review ensures that all review-related information is located in one place, within the reach and in-context to the revision of the cellview. Design review simplifies the process of reviewing, fixing, and synchronizing design data in the navigator or annotation browser assistants. The canvas interaction and visualization make it a very context-specific review process. It also provides an option to deploy your custom checklist and the possibility to add triggers when a checklist is used. In addition, it lets you add snapshots and capture communication trails. Design review provides a tracking mechanism for tamper-proof review process.

If you’re still not taking advantage of the seamless design review process supported by Virtuoso Studio, it might be time to ask yourself if your current review process is efficient.