Design Rules

We have implemented major changes to the design submission process to align with the introduction of the CORNERSTONE terms and conditions.

All design submissions, even those that are supported by EPSRC funding, must agree with the terms and conditions. Under no circumstances will we accept designs without agreement with the terms.

Therefore, we strongly recommend that the terms and conditions are pre-authorised by your institution prior to the mask submission date.

In order to be eligible to submit a design to any given call, you must first sign-up using the online form found using the link below. This is in order to enable us to prepare the necessary paperwork and plan the fabrication process effectively. The sign-up deadline for MPW #12 is Friday 15^th March 2019:

www.cornerstone.sotonfab.co.uk/work-with-us/sign-up-form

Under no circumstances will we accept any design submissions for which we have not received a corresponding sign-up form.

After completing the sign-up form, when you are ready to submit your mask design on or before Friday 26th April 2019, follow the link below to the mask submission page:

www.cornerstone.sotonfab.co.uk/work-with-us/mask-submission-form

Where applicable, any purchase orders must be uploaded to this form. Purchase orders will not be accepted via email.

CORNERSTONE users are invited to submit designs to the twelfth call. The platform is 340 nm Si / 2 µm buried oxide (BOX) silicon-on-insulator (SOI).

Once again, a process design kit (PDK) has been made available using Luceda’s IPKISS software, subject to purchasing the appropriate license. To obtain a copy of the software and a license key, please contact Luceda by sending an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., specifying that you require a license for CORNERSTONE PDK usage. Of course, the CORNERSTONE PDK is free of charge if you already have a valid IPKISS license.  

Access to this run is free of charge for UK research institutes (funded by EPSRC). Overseas universities and industrial companies can access this run with the following cost options:

Design area: 11.47 mm x 4.9 mm = £10,000.

Design area: 5.5 mm x 4.9 mm = £7,000.

The sign-up deadline is Friday 15th March 2019. The mask submission deadline is Friday 26th April 2019.

For more information, full design rules and quick reference design rules, please download the CORNERSTONE 12th Call Design Rules documents and the .GDSII template files.

In order to help you ensure that you comply with the design rules, you can also download a design rule check (DRC) checklist and if you have access to Tanner L-Edit software, a .tdb version of the template containing a DRC file that you can run to automatically find any design rule violations (note that the automatic DRC will not check all of the design rules, so it remains very important to read the design rules in detail).

For any queries, including questions on bespoke processing i.e. custom etch depths etc., please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.