Reducing narrow gate width effects in an integrated circuit design

Abstract

A method for reducing narrow gate width effects in an integrated circuit includes finding the smallest transistor channel widths that are larger than the minimum width for the technology for library cells that produce logic blocks that meet timing constraints while using the least amount of power and have the smallest possible area. The method may include characterizing a device library while varying process, voltage and temperature parameters, and synthesizing an HDL representation of a functional logic block including cells from the device library. The method may also include determining whether timing, area, and power values of the functional logic block are within a predetermined range. In response to the timing, area, and power values not being within the predetermined range, iteratively increasing the channel width of at least a portion of the transistors of at least one of the cells in the device library.