What's Good About APD’s Assembly DRCs? You’ll Need the 16.5 Release to See!

26 Jul 2011 • 25 minute read

Prior to the Allegro Package Designer (APD) 16.3 release, Design Rule Check (DRC) markers created by Assembly Rule Checks had to be external DRC markers since no constraint IDs were associated with the ADRC constraints. In the 16.3 release, Constraint IDs were created for each of the rules. It enabled us to make a change to DRC markers. For the 16.5 release, each Assembly DRC (ADRC) rule gets its own marker based on constraint ID.

APD’s ADRC DRC markers will look and behave similar to all DRCs. ADRC markers will differ for different rule checks (or groups of related rule checks), rather than all appearing the same as it was with using External DRC markers. ADRC DRCs will have their own worksheet in Constraint Manager instead of being combined with External DRC markers.

Differences between current (external) DRC behavior and constraint ID based behavior are as follows:

	CURRENT	CONSTRAINT ID Based	Comments
When object that has DRC Marker attached is moved	DRC Marker stays at previous location (unattached )	DRC marker deleted ( without warning)	This will display the message that the disappeared marker doesn’t mean that there is no error any longer, just that the ADRC rules have to be re-run.
Update DRC command	Doesn’t have any effect on ADRC DRC markers	Doesn’t have any effect on ADRC DRC markers	Update DRC will not affect ADRC DRC markers, similar to batch DRCs run by the rest of the system
When object that has DRC Marker attached is deleted	DRC Marker deleted	DRC Marker deleted	No change in behavior
Reports > DRC report	Reports ADRC DRCs as any other in the system	Reports ADRC DRCs as any other in the system	No change in behavior

Read on for more details ...

Show element difference

16.3:

Constraint ID based in 16.5:

DRC marker difference

16.3:

16.5:

DRC marker 2 letter combinations

Lower case letters for 2 letter combinations are used for the DRC bow-tie marker.
Existing online wire rules already have 2 letter combinations and they are upper case letters.
They are:

Wire Length ( minimum)	WA
Wire Length ( maximum)	WI
Wire Maximum Angle to Die Edge	WA
Finger to Component Spacing	FC
Wire to Finger Spacing	WF
Wire to Pin Spacing	WP
Wire to Wire Spacing	WW
Wire End to Wire End Spacing	WE

There are no changes to existing DRCs.

ADRC batch rule combinations:

Group	Rules in the group	2 letter combination
Wire Physical	Wire Length over Parent Die	wl
Wire Physical	Wire Length over Lower Die	wl
Wire Physical	Wire Maximum Angle to Finger	wa
Wire Spacing	Wire Substrate End Distance inside soldermask	ws
Wire Spacing	Wire to Component Spacing	wc
Die Physical	Die Overhang	oh
Die Physical	Die Pad Pitch	pp
Die Physical	Die Pad To Lower Die Overhang	oh
Die Physical	Die Pad to Upper Die Spacing	pd
Die Spacing	Die to Connected Finger Spacing	df
Die Spacing	Die To Finger Spacing	df
Die Spacing	Die to Package Edge Spacing	de
Die Spacing	Die To Die Spacing, Connected Dies	dd
Die Spacing	Die To Die Spacing, Unconnected Dies	dd
Optical	Wire to Die Pad Optical Short	os
Optical	Wire to Finger Optical Short	os
Optical	Wire To Wire Optical Short, Die to Die	os
Optical	Wire to Wire Optical Short, Die to Substrate	os
Die Stack	Center to Center Delta, Extends Based	cc
Die Stack	Center To Center Delta, Pin Based	cc
Die Stack	Die Stack Height	sh
Die Stack	Die Stack to Die Stack Spacing	dd
Die Flag	Die Flag to Die Flag Spacing	xx
Die Flag	Die Flag to Discrete Component Spacing	xc
Die Flag	Die Flag to Finger Spacing	xf
Die Flag	Die Flag to Package Edge Spacing	xe
Solder Mask	Continuous Solder Mask Coverage	sm
Solder Mask	Minimum Solder Mask Shape	sm
Solder Mask	Minimum Solder Mask Void	sm
Solder Mask	Solder Mask To Die Edge Spacing	sd
Solder Mask	Solder Mask to Package Edge Spacing	se
Solder Mask	Solder Mask To Solder Mask Spacing	ss
Package Substrate	Any Metal To Any Metal Spacing	mm
Package Substrate	Cline to Via Overlap	vo
Package Substrate	Conductor to Package Edge Spacing	me
Package Substrate	Discrete Component Pad to Finger Spacing	pf
Package Substrate	Discrete Component Pad to Package Edge	pe
Package Substrate	Exposed Metal to Exposed Metal Spacing	mm
Package Substrate	Finger to Package Substrate Spacing	fe
Package Substrate	Minimum cline segment	cs
Package Substrate	Trace Extension from Finger	te
Package Substrate	Via to Package Substrate Edge Spacing	ve
Shape	Acute Angle Shape Boundary	aa
Shape	Minimum Shape Check	ms
Shape	Minimum Void Check	ms
Acute Angle Metal	Acute Angle Routing	aa
Acute Angle Metal	Merged Metal Minimum Angle	aa
Acute Angle Metal	Trace Minimum Angle to Pad	aa
Acute Angle Metal	Trace Minimum Angle to Shape	aa
Acute Angle Metal	Trace Minimum Angle to Trace	aa
Miscellaneous	Conductor Shape Void Overlap	vo
Miscellaneous	Degassing Void Overlap	vo
Miscellaneous	Tombstone Check	ts

DRC Display in Constraint Manager

New Assembly Worksheet in the DRC domain of the Constraint Manager where assembly DRCs will be displayed:

Note: Uprev and downrev will remove all existing ADRC DRC markers and display a message in the console (as well as in the uprev/downrev log file) to run ADRC again.

Please share your experience using this new capability.

Jerry "GenPart" Grzenia