In the world of semiconductor design, success depends on how well innovation and execution come together. Whether it’s a high-performance SoC or an industrial-grade controller, taking a design from RTL to GDSII requires more than just tools — it demands engineering discipline, domain depth, and predictable execution.
At Interex Semiconductor, we focus on turning complex silicon challenges into success stories. When a global customer approached us with a high-performance microcontroller program and an aggressive timeline of seven months, we saw an opportunity to demonstrate how strong methodology, teamwork, and ownership can achieve results once considered unthinkable.
Building a Proven RTL-to-GDSII Flow
Every successful silicon tapeout starts with a robust foundation. Our Physical Design (PD) team established a complete RTL-to-GDSII methodology from scratch — scalable, automated, and tuned for production-ready results.
Using industry-leading EDA tools — Genus, Innovus, Tempus, Voltus, QRC, and PVS — our engineers created a fully integrated digital implementation flow with automated checkpoints and quality gates. This ensured consistent convergence across all design stages — synthesis, place-and-route, timing, and signoff.
By embedding validation scripts and consistency checks at every level, the team achieved parallel progress without compromising quality, enabling rapid design closure within a demanding schedule.
Design Planning and Optimization
Once the flow was ready, the team focused on chip-level planning — defining IO structures, partitioning functional blocks, and optimizing die utilization.
Every decision — from macro placement to routing channel design — was guided by performance and power considerations. Through iterative floorplanning and congestion analysis, our engineers identified an architecture that balanced efficiency, power integrity, and manufacturability.
With careful power grid design and separation of critical domains, the foundation was laid for a high-reliability, high-performance chip.
Parallel Implementation: Execution with Precision
To meet tight project timelines, sequential workflows were replaced with a parallel implementation strategy. Each block underwent its own flow for placement, clock tree synthesis, routing, and timing optimization, with dedicated engineers driving convergence at block level.
Cross-team dashboards enabled visibility and coordination, while early timing models were integrated at chip top to validate global closure. In parallel, IR-drop and EM analyses ensured robust power and reliability.
This approach allowed the PD team to maintain execution speed without sacrificing precision — a hallmark of Interex’s design methodology.
Integration and Timing Closure
Chip-level integration brings every design element together, and it’s often where experience matters most. Our engineers performed multi-corner, multi-mode timing closure with Tempus, optimizing for both setup and hold margins.
Power and signal integrity were validated using Voltus and extraction-based checks, while final routing was optimized for noise isolation and manufacturability.
Through a sequence of targeted ECOs and optimization passes, the team achieved timing closure, power compliance, and DRC-clean layouts within the expected schedule.
Signoff and Tapeout Readiness
Signoff is where precision defines success. Interex engineers executed complete DRC, LVS, ANT, and ERC verification with PVS, followed by formal equivalence checks using Conformal to ensure functional integrity between RTL and post-layout netlists.
Every milestone was tracked, validated, and documented, ensuring traceability across all implementation stages. The final GDSII database and signoff package were delivered ahead of schedule, marking another successful tapeout through disciplined execution.
Collaboration and Ownership: The Interex Way
Behind every successful tapeout is a strong culture of collaboration. At Interex Semiconductor, our teams work closely with customer architecture, verification, and software groups to align timing constraints, interface requirements, and design goals.
This transparent engagement model ensures early issue visibility, faster iteration cycles, and first-pass success. Our approach blends deep technical capability with a sense of ownership — engineers don’t just complete tasks; they deliver outcomes that align with customer intent.
Expertise Across Technologies
Our experience extends across advanced and mature process technologies, with successful project executions in automotive, data center, AI acceleration, networking, and industrial control domains.
Interex engineers bring a deep understanding of EDA tools, foundry processes, and flow customization, ensuring that every project benefits from optimized methodology and consistent signoff quality.
Whether working on advanced FinFET technologies or mature mixed-signal designs, our teams adapt seamlessly to customer-specific environments and requirements.
Helping Customers Achieve Silicon Confidence
Interex Semiconductor offers complete ASIC and SoC design services, ensuring first-pass success from netlist to tapeout.
Our expertise covers:
• Floorplanning and partitioning for optimized hierarchy and routing
• Placement, CTS, and routing closure for high performance and minimal congestion
• Timing and signal integrity optimization across multiple corners
• IR/EM analysis and reliability verification
• Physical verification (DRC/LVS/ANT/ERC) and formal signoff
Beyond execution, we focus on methodology enablement — providing automation scripts, documentation, and reusable flows to strengthen our customers’ internal design capability.
Looking Ahead
The success of this implementation reflects what Interex Semiconductor stands for — technical depth, structured execution, and customer confidence.
As designs grow more complex and timelines become tighter, we continue to refine our methodologies, embrace automation, and invest in talent that thrives on ownership and accountability.
At Interex Semiconductor, our mission is clear: to deliver predictable, high-quality silicon outcomes — on time, every time.
