Patent ID: 7814447

Claim:
A machine-implemented method for supplanting foundry imposed design rules in an electronic design, comprising: using a computer configured for performing: identifying an electronic design of an electronic circuit, in which the electronic design comprises an electronic design feature; determining a new design rule to supplant one or more of the foundry imposed design rules by identifying a direct requirement for a characteristic of the electronic design feature, in which the characteristic comprises a geometric, physical, chemical, or electrical attribute of the electronic design feature, and the new design rule incorporates the direct requirement for the characteristic, and the one or more of the foundry imposed design rules incorporates an indirect requirement for a different characteristic of the electronic design feature; identifying a model for a fabrication, metrology, or image processing process; determining whether the new design rule is satisfied by the electronic design feature to be manufactured based at least in part upon the model for the fabrication, metrology, or image processing process; and displaying a result of the determining whether the rule is satisfied on a display apparatus or storing the result in a tangible machine accessible storage medium.