Modeling and Propagation of Noisy Waveforms in Static Timing Analysis

Abstract: A technique based on the sensitivity of the output to input waveform is presented for accurate propagation of delay information through a gate for the purpose of static timing analysis (STA) in the presence of noise. Conventional STA tools represent a waveform by its arrival time and slope. However, this is not an accurate way of modeling the waveform for the purpose of noise analysis. The key contribution of our work is the development of a method that allows efficient propagation of equivalent waveforms throughout the circuit. Experimental results demonstrate higher accuracy of the proposed sensitivity-based gate delay propagation technique, SGDP, compared to the best of existing approaches. SGDP is compatible with the current level of gate characterization in conventional ASIC cell libraries, and as a result, it can be easily incorporated into commercial STA tools to improve their accuracy.