Potential Slack: An Effective Metric of Combinational Circuit Performance

Abstract

This paper proposes the concept of potential slack and show it is an effective metric of combinational circuit performance. We provide several methods for estimating potential slack and prove one (a maximal-independent-set based algorithm) in particular works best. Experiments in gate sizing show that potential slack provides 100% correct prediction for circuit area optimization. We also explore the role of potential slack in timing-driven placement.