ECO cost measurement and incremental gate sizing for late process changes

Changes in the manufacturing process parameters may create timing violations in a design, making it necessary to perform an engineering change order (ECO) to correct these problems. We present a framework for performing incremental gate sizing for process changes late in the design cycle, and a method for creating initial designs that are robust to late process changes. This includes a method for measuring and estimating ECO cost and for transforming these costs into linear programming optimization problems. In the case of ECOs, the method reduces ECO costs on average, by 89% in changed area compared to a leading commercial tool. Furthermore, the robust initial designs are, on average, 55% less likely to need redesign in the future.