Skew And Delay Optimization For Reliable Buffered Clock Trees

Abstract

Recenily, several design auiomaiion approaches for delay and skew minimization of clock nets have been proposed. These approaches are based upon varying the widths and lengths of the clock tree wires io minimize skew and sometimes delay. In this paper, concurrent buffer insertion and global wire width adjusimenis are used to reliably reduce both delay and power from that obtained for a reliable buflerless soluiion. Moreover, in spite of ihe belief ihai ihe mismaich in bufler delays can resuli in significant clock skew, our resulis show ihai buflers can actually reduce the process dependent skew for a reliable design.