Cell-based noise characterization and evaluation

Abstract

In deep submicron technologies, coupling capacitance significantly dominates the total parasitic capacitance. This causes crosstalk noise to be induced on quiescent signals which could lead to catastrophic failures. A methodology is provided that is a practical approach to full-chip crosstalk noise verification. A multi-dimensional noise lookup table is formed for a cell used within the IC, wherein the multi-dimensional noise table relates a set of input noise pulse characteristics and a set of output loading characteristics to an output noise pulse characteristic of the cell. A noise pulse on an input to an instantiation of a cell is determined and then characterized. An output loading characteristic of the cell is also made. A prediction of whether the instantiation of cell will propagate the noise pulse is made by selecting an output noise pulse characteristic from the multi-dimensional noise table corresponding to the noise pulse characteristic and to the output loading characteristic. Other instantiations of the cell are evaluated using the same multi-dimensional noise table. A prediction of whether each instantiation of cell will propagate the noise pulse is made by selecting an output noise pulse characteristic from the multi-dimensional noise table corresponding to the noise pulse characteristic and to the output loading characteristic associated with each instantiation of the cell.