SFGEN

What is SFGEN?

SFGEN was developed to assist in the high-speed rasterization of very large panels that contain repeated data, such as those used to manufacture printed circuit boards, IC packages, and LCD displays.

Rasterizers slow down as the DPI increases and the image area increases. To combat this problem, we have developed a new rasterizer that takes advantage of the fact that many large masks contain mostly repetitive data.

If repeating geometries can be identified and separated from background data, you can use techniques in RIP that require only small areas to be rasterized, reusing the bitmap for the repeated geometries.

SFGEN performs this task for ODB++ layout data (commonly used for most PCB panels) and for GDSII data (used for all types of display panels).

The SFGEN output is a GDSII file that has been organized into two levels of hierarchy: a top level containing background data, and a second level containing one or more repeated "cells."

SFGEN is "smart" and verifies that background frame data does not interact with repeated data. If you encounter this interaction, you can remove the repeating elements or incorporate the interaction into the repeating elements.

RTCR uses repeat encoding to speed up rasterization

The RTCR (Real Time Correction RIP) program reads this optimized GDSII file and knows how to create a single bitmap from each of the "masters" of repeated cells and then place the bitmap in the correct locations.

Pre-processing for other rasterizers

Rasterizers from other developers can also benefit from SFGEN. We have introduced a new flow based on GDSCompact that reduces redundant data and can convert all polygon data to convex (quadrilateral) polygons. This allows for very fast rasterization and eliminates the need to deal with a high count of vertices and possibly complicated polygons.

System Requirements:

CPU: 1.8 GHz dual core processor

RAM: 2 GB

HDD/SSD: 50 GB of free space on main drive

Operating system: Microsoft Windows 8 32-bit, Microsoft Windows 7 32-bit and Microsoft Windows Vista 32-bit

Resolution: 1024×768