Foundry reference flow
Beginner
The factory’s list of recommended design programs and settings. Following it lowers the risk that the chip has problems.
Novice
A recommended recipe a chip factory publishes for one of its processes: which design tools and versions to use at each step, plus scripts that pass data from one tool to the next.
Expert
Built on tools whose results the foundry has checked against its own process, especially the final-check (signoff) tools: design-rule and layout-versus-schematic checking, wire extraction, timing, and power-grid analysis. The rule files ship in those tools’ own formats, which is the practical lock-in behind tool qualification.
Explained in Tool landscape (Extras).
See also: Golden (signoff-quality) tool, PDK (process design kit).