Caching technique for electrical simulation of vlsi interconnect

Abstract

Circuits, methods, and apparatus for including interconnect parasitics without greatly increasing circuit simulation complexity and run times. Interconnect paths are reduced to one of a number of simplified topologies based on path width, length, or other parameters. The input drive waveform is similarly approximated. A grid array is formed in advance, where each point in the grid array corresponds to a set of values relating to a path topology, input waveform, and resulting output waveform. The simplified interconnect path and input waveform are mapped into a set of parameters which corresponds to a location in the predetermined grid array. The output waveform is determined by interpolating output waveforms from gridpoints surrounding the location.