Patent ID: 6912705

Claim:
A method for performing an operation on physical design data of an integrated circuit (IC) design, the IC design including a first plurality of design figures laid-out on a physical layout area for the IC design, each of the design figures being represented by a respective data object stored in a database, said method comprising: dividing the physical layout area into a second plurality of non-overlapping sub-areas; assigning at least one area property to each of the data objects, the area property indicating a corresponding sub-area on which at least part of the corresponding design figure is to be located; selecting a first data object; and conducting an operation involving the first data object and a second data object, said conducting including: selecting the second data object from a subset of data objects having an area property indicating a sub-area indicated by an area property of the first data object; and performing the operation on the first data object and the second data object.