Statistical path tracing in timing graphs

Path tracing is a key requirement in providing various functionalities in a Static Timing Analysis (STA) tool. With growing design sizes and advancements in STA techniques like statistical timing analysis, path tracing techniques need to be more efficient and accurate. Naïve extensions of path tracing techniques for statistical timing analysis are found to be inefficient and inaccurate. In this paper, we present a novel Statistical Path Tracing (SPT) approach and illustrate its application in Common Path Pessimism Removal (CPPR). We demonstrate that SPT is more efficient and accurate when compared to a Deterministic Path Tracing (DPT) approach.

[1]  Jinjun Xiong,et al.  Timing analysis with nonseparable statistical and deterministic variations , 2012, DAC Design Automation Conference 2012.

[2]  K. Ravindran,et al.  First-Order Incremental Block-Based Statistical Timing Analysis , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems.

[3]  Jin Hu,et al.  TAU 2014 contest on removing common path pessimism during timing analysis , 2014, ICCAD.

[4]  Sachin S. Sapatnekar,et al.  Statistical Timing Analysis Considering Spatial Correlations using a Single Pert-Like Traversal , 2003, ICCAD 2003.

[5]  Hai Zhou,et al.  Advances in Computation of the Maximum of a Set of Gaussian Random Variables , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems.

[6]  Jin Hu,et al.  TAU 2014 contest on removing common path pessimism during timing analysis: Special session paper: Common path pessimism removal (CPPR) , 2014, 2014 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD).

[7]  Rakesh Chadha,et al.  Static Timing Analysis for Nanometer Designs: A Practical Approach , 2009 .

[8]  David Blaauw,et al.  Statistical Timing Analysis: From Basic Principles to State of the Art , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems.

[9]  P. Ghanta,et al.  A Framework for Statistical Timing Analysis using Non-Linear Delay and Slew Models , 2006, 2006 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer Aided Design.