Delay driven AIG restructuring using slack budget management

Timing optimizations during logic synthesis has become a necessary step to achieve timing closure in VLSI designs. This often involves "shortening" all paths found in the circuit at a cost of increasing the circuit area. In contrast, we present a synthesis approach which leverages slack budgeting to effectively minimize the critical path length without increasing the area of the design. Our results confirm that this is an effective method to control area while optimizing for delay. When compared to an area driven logic synthesis flow, we achieve a 32% reduction in logic depth and an 11% reduction in circuit delay when placed by VPR [1]; and when compared against a depth controlled logic synthesis flow without slack budgeting, we achieve an 8% reduction in logic depth and a 3% reduction in circuit delay when placed by VPR [1]. In both cases, the area penalty is negligible.