Systems and methods for estimating wire capacitance in a register-transfer level circuit design

Abstract

Example systems and methods are disclosed for estimating wire capacitance in an RTL circuit design. In an embodiment, a reference post-layout design is received from a non-transitory storage medium, and gate-level nets within the reference post-layout design are classified as either long nets or short nets based, at least in part, on an average fanout length within the gate-level net. A parasitic model may be generated for each of the gate-level nets, and the gate-level nets and associated parasitic models may be stored within either a long net database or a short net database based on the classification of the gate-level net. A net from the RTL circuit design may be classified as either long or short based, at least in part, on a number of modules crossed by one or more fanouts within the net. If the net from the RTL circuit design is classified as long, then capacitance for the net may be estimated using a parasitic model selected from the long net database. If the net from the RTL circuit design is classified as short, then capacitance for the net may be estimated using a parasitic model selected from the short net database.