Silicon speedpath measurement and feedback into EDA flows

Abstract

Timing, test, reliability, and noise are modeled and abstracted in our design and verification flows. Specific EDA algorithms are then designed to work with these abstracted models, often in isolation of other effects. However, tighter design margins and higher reliability issues have increased the need for accurate models and algorithms. We propose utilizing silicon data to tune and improve the EDA tools and flows. In this paper we describe a silicon methodology to isolate silicon speedpath environments and feed these into a simulation framework to temporally and spatially isolate specific speedpaths in order to model and understand the real effects. This is done using accurate electrical speedpath modeling techniques which may be used to tune the accuracy and correlation of the design models. The effort required to distinguish the many different electrical effects will be outlined.