Abstract: An improved approach for implementing metal fill on an electrical device without causing creating cross-coupling capacitance problems is disclosed. Timing aware metal fill insertion is performed to avoid or minimize cross-capacitance problems on the IC design. A cost may be assigned to different candidate metal fill shapes. The cost is associated with the expected effect upon timing requirements by the metal fill shape, with lower costs corresponding to lower expected impacts upon the timing requirements. To meet density requirements, lower cost metal fill shapes are inserted prior to higher cost metal fill shapes.

Abstract: Disclosed is an improved method and system for implementing metal fill for an integrated circuit design. When an engineering change order is implemented, the existing dummy metal fill geometries are initially ignored when modifying the layout, even if this results in shorts and/or other DRC violations. Once the ECO changes have been implemented, those violations caused by interaction between the changes and the metal fill are repaired afterwards.

Abstract: An improved method, system, and article of manufacture for reducing via failures is described. In one approach, additional vias or via cuts are inserted into an IC device to increase the number of cuts in a given area. The additional vias or via cuts are inserted until a sufficient via density level has been reached.