Patent ID: 8448096

Claim:
A method for multi-processing an electronic design layout, comprising: dividing the electronic design layout into multiple layout portions by at least dividing a shape that intersects a boundary between at least two of the multiple layout portions into multiple pieces such that the multiple layout portions including the shape that is divided are to be parallel processed, rather than sequentially processed, by multiple processing entities; identifying a geometric operation to be performed upon the electronic design layout by at least sharing data for at least two layout portions of the multiple layout portions among two or more processing entities of the multiple processing entities, wherein the geometric operation comprises at least one of a binary select operation and a count-based select operation for choosing shapes on a first layer that have a specified geometrical relationship with a second layer based at least in part upon whether or not a number of occurrences of the specified geometrical relationship is to be considered; processing internal shapes within the multiple layout portions; processing, by using at least one processor, interface shapes, wherein at least one of the interface shapes includes a boundary of at least one of the multiple layout portions, and the act of processing the interface shapes comprises: performing local regioning for the geometric operation upon the at least one of the multiple layout portions, wherein the act of performing the local regioning comprises determining a local relationship between the at least one of the interface shapes and a corresponding neighbor's interface shape; and performing global regioning for the geometric operation upon the multiple layout portions, wherein the act of performing the global regioning comprises aggregating information based at least in part upon a global relationship from the act of performing local regioning with other local regioning information from across a plurality of the multiple layout portions; and combining the local and global relationships of the internal shapes and the interface shapes.