International Business Machines Corporation

Fred Lei Yang

Vasant B Rao

Jeffrey Paul Soreff

Ravichander Ledalla

Jeffrey G Hemmett

Barry Lee Dorfman

A method and a system for selecting timing points in an electrical interconnect network to be used in electrical simulations for a static timing analysis for improved accuracy. The present method includes discovering choke points in an electrical model of the interconnect for which all the paths from drivers to receivers must pass through on certain types of nets. The method then uses the choke point electrical nodes, where they exist, as an output timing point of the logic gate driving the net. The method solves the problem of inaccuracies due to resistances between different driver pins on the same interconnect net, though it can also be applied to solving analogous inaccuracies due to resistances between different receiver pins associated with the same receiver timing point. It further also applies to interconnect with other two-port parasitic elements, to cases where only a subset of receiver pins on the net require accurate timing, and to cases where a set of electrical nodes, rather than a single node, partition all paths from drivers to receivers on a net.

Timing point selection for a static timing analysis in the presence of interconnect electrical elements

A method for further reducing RC parasitics in an interconnect network following internal node elimination is described. A resistor is initially selected as a candidate for shorting, and it is established whether the accumulated delay error at either end of the resistor is less than a predetermined threshold. This threshold must be a fraction of the time-constant threshold selected by internal node elimination techniques in order to limit the growth of the accumulated delay errors. An important aspect of the invention is the simplicity of the formula used to change the downstream resistor values, namely, the product of the value of the resistor shorted and the ratio of the cumulative downstream capacitances of the two ends of the resistor whose value is being changed. This particular choice of updating the downstream resistor values minimizes the absolute-value of the delay errors at every node due to shorting of the selected resistor. It also preserves the delays at all nodes in the interconnect network apart from the two ends of the resistor selected for shorting.

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

Fred Lei Yang