minimum metal density layer
Hi,
No that is false, having density above maximum is not good at all, it is even worse than having it less than min.
You really need to stick at the min/max bounds.
If you have too much metal, than the dielectric between metal tracks is most likely to get missed during the etching stage. This would lead to a collapse of the metal wires on each other resulting in very nasty shorts.
If your chip is meant for few samples, than your process engineers can make some effort taking extra care of what is going on. This would not be possible for mass production chips. All density rules have be fixed.
In terms of CAD implementation, it really depends on the process and the PDK provider. The check could be either part of the initial DRC check or by switching an extra button/file. Density checks are window-based as well. The size of the window could vary from a process to an other.
In more advanced technology nodes like 65nm and beyond, density checks are getting even tough ... There are rules to make gradient checks between adjacent windows, other rules to check density over multiple metal levels ... quite a nightmare really ... But this is very important for DFM and Yield. Yield is money ;-)
Cheers,
Riad.