Pub Date : 2004-02-16DOI: 10.1109/DATE.2004.1268826
Saravanan Padmanaban, S. Tragoudas
We present a novel framework to identify all the robustly testable and untestable path delay faults in a circuit. The method uses a combination of decision diagrams for manipulating path delay faults and Boolean functions. The approach benefits from processing partial paths or fanout free segments in the circuit rather than the entire path. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is demonstrated experimentally. It is observed that the methodology identifies 350% more testable faults in the ISCAS'85 benchmark C6288 than any existing technique by utilizing only a fraction of the time compared to earlier work.
{"title":"Using BDDs and ZBDDs for efficient identification of testable path delay faults","authors":"Saravanan Padmanaban, S. Tragoudas","doi":"10.1109/DATE.2004.1268826","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/DATE.2004.1268826","url":null,"abstract":"We present a novel framework to identify all the robustly testable and untestable path delay faults in a circuit. The method uses a combination of decision diagrams for manipulating path delay faults and Boolean functions. The approach benefits from processing partial paths or fanout free segments in the circuit rather than the entire path. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is demonstrated experimentally. It is observed that the methodology identifies 350% more testable faults in the ISCAS'85 benchmark C6288 than any existing technique by utilizing only a fraction of the time compared to earlier work.","PeriodicalId":335658,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition","volume":"63 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124576231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2004-02-16DOI: 10.1109/DATE.2004.1268938
Mladen Nikitovic, M. Brorsson
In this paper, we have investigated the efficiency of two power-saving strategies that reduces both static and dynamic power consumption when applied to a chip-multiprocessor (CMP). They are evaluated under two workload scenarios and compared against a conventional uni-processor architecture and a CMP without any power-aware scheduling. The results show that energy due to static and dynamic power consumption can be reduced by up to 78% and that further 8% energy can be saved at the expense of response-time of non-critical applications. Furthermore, a small study on the potential impact of system-level events showed that system calls can contribute significantly to the total energy consumed.
{"title":"A low power strategy for future mobile terminals","authors":"Mladen Nikitovic, M. Brorsson","doi":"10.1109/DATE.2004.1268938","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/DATE.2004.1268938","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we have investigated the efficiency of two power-saving strategies that reduces both static and dynamic power consumption when applied to a chip-multiprocessor (CMP). They are evaluated under two workload scenarios and compared against a conventional uni-processor architecture and a CMP without any power-aware scheduling. The results show that energy due to static and dynamic power consumption can be reduced by up to 78% and that further 8% energy can be saved at the expense of response-time of non-critical applications. Furthermore, a small study on the potential impact of system-level events showed that system calls can contribute significantly to the total energy consumed.","PeriodicalId":335658,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132294319","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2004-02-16DOI: 10.1109/DATE.2004.1268992
I. Kadayif, M. Kandemir
In recent years, research on wireless sensor networks has been undergoing a revolution, promising to have significant impact on a broad range of applications from military to health care to food safety. An important problem in many sensor network applications is to decide the amount of computation (or filtering) that needs to be done in the sensor nodes before the data are shifted to a central base station. Right amount of data filtering in the sensor nodes can lead to large savings in network-wide energy consumption. The main goal of this paper is to develop an automated strategy for data filtering in wireless sensor nodes. Assuming that one needs to reduce the overall energy consumption (as opposed to reducing just computation energy or communication energy), the proposed strategy attempts to strike a balance between computation energy consumption and communication energy consumption. Our experimental results clearly indicate that the proposed data filtering strategy generates substantial energy savings in practice.
{"title":"Tuning in-sensor data filtering to reduce energy consumption in wireless sensor networks","authors":"I. Kadayif, M. Kandemir","doi":"10.1109/DATE.2004.1268992","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/DATE.2004.1268992","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, research on wireless sensor networks has been undergoing a revolution, promising to have significant impact on a broad range of applications from military to health care to food safety. An important problem in many sensor network applications is to decide the amount of computation (or filtering) that needs to be done in the sensor nodes before the data are shifted to a central base station. Right amount of data filtering in the sensor nodes can lead to large savings in network-wide energy consumption. The main goal of this paper is to develop an automated strategy for data filtering in wireless sensor nodes. Assuming that one needs to reduce the overall energy consumption (as opposed to reducing just computation energy or communication energy), the proposed strategy attempts to strike a balance between computation energy consumption and communication energy consumption. Our experimental results clearly indicate that the proposed data filtering strategy generates substantial energy savings in practice.","PeriodicalId":335658,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition","volume":"200 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133380751","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2004-02-16DOI: 10.1109/DATE.2004.1268880
O. Sinanoglu, A. Orailoglu
Scan-based cores impose considerable test power challenges due to excessive switching activity during shift cycles. The consequent test power constraints force SOC designers to sacrifice parallelism among core tests, as exceeding power thresholds may damage the chip being tested. Reduction of test power for SOC cores can thus increase the number of cores that can be tested in parallel, improving significantly SOC test application time. In this paper, we propose a scan chain modification technique that inserts logic gates on the scan path. The consequent beneficial test data transformations are utilized to reduce the scan chain transitions during shift cycles and hence test power. We introduce a matrix band algebra that models the impact of logic gate insertion between scan cells on the test stimulus and response transformations realized. As we have successfully modeled the response transformations as well, the methodology we propose is capable of truly minimizing the overall test power. The test vectors and responses are analyzed in an intertwined manner, identifying the best possible scan chain modification, which is realized at minimal area cost. Experimental results justify the efficacy of the proposed methodology as well.
{"title":"Scan power minimization through stimulus and response transformations","authors":"O. Sinanoglu, A. Orailoglu","doi":"10.1109/DATE.2004.1268880","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/DATE.2004.1268880","url":null,"abstract":"Scan-based cores impose considerable test power challenges due to excessive switching activity during shift cycles. The consequent test power constraints force SOC designers to sacrifice parallelism among core tests, as exceeding power thresholds may damage the chip being tested. Reduction of test power for SOC cores can thus increase the number of cores that can be tested in parallel, improving significantly SOC test application time. In this paper, we propose a scan chain modification technique that inserts logic gates on the scan path. The consequent beneficial test data transformations are utilized to reduce the scan chain transitions during shift cycles and hence test power. We introduce a matrix band algebra that models the impact of logic gate insertion between scan cells on the test stimulus and response transformations realized. As we have successfully modeled the response transformations as well, the methodology we propose is capable of truly minimizing the overall test power. The test vectors and responses are analyzed in an intertwined manner, identifying the best possible scan chain modification, which is realized at minimal area cost. Experimental results justify the efficacy of the proposed methodology as well.","PeriodicalId":335658,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition","volume":"80 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133606543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2004-02-16DOI: 10.1109/DATE.2004.1269055
Arijit Mondal, P. Chakrabarti, C. Mandal
Present day designers require deep reasoning methods to analyze circuit timing. This includes analysis of effects of dynamic behavior (like glitches) on critical paths, simultaneous switching and identification of specific patterns and their timings. This paper proposes a novel approach that uses a combination of symbolic event propagation and temporal reasoning to extract timing properties of gate-level circuits. The formulation captures complex situations like triggering of traditional false paths and simultaneous switching in a unified symbolic representation in addition to identifying false paths, critical paths as well as conditions for such situations. This information is then represented as an event-time graph. A simple temporal logic on events is proposed that can be used to formulate a wide class of useful queries for various input scenarios. These include maximum/minimum delays, transition times, duration of patterns, etc. An algorithm is developed that retrieves answers to such queries from the event-time graph. A complete BDD based implementation of this system has been made. Results on the ISCAS85 benchmarks indicate very interesting properties of these circuits.
{"title":"A new approach to timing analysis using event propagation and temporal logic","authors":"Arijit Mondal, P. Chakrabarti, C. Mandal","doi":"10.1109/DATE.2004.1269055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/DATE.2004.1269055","url":null,"abstract":"Present day designers require deep reasoning methods to analyze circuit timing. This includes analysis of effects of dynamic behavior (like glitches) on critical paths, simultaneous switching and identification of specific patterns and their timings. This paper proposes a novel approach that uses a combination of symbolic event propagation and temporal reasoning to extract timing properties of gate-level circuits. The formulation captures complex situations like triggering of traditional false paths and simultaneous switching in a unified symbolic representation in addition to identifying false paths, critical paths as well as conditions for such situations. This information is then represented as an event-time graph. A simple temporal logic on events is proposed that can be used to formulate a wide class of useful queries for various input scenarios. These include maximum/minimum delays, transition times, duration of patterns, etc. An algorithm is developed that retrieves answers to such queries from the event-time graph. A complete BDD based implementation of this system has been made. Results on the ISCAS85 benchmarks indicate very interesting properties of these circuits.","PeriodicalId":335658,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133773454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2004-02-16DOI: 10.1109/DATE.2004.1268999
A. Jalabert, S. Murali, L. Benini, G. Micheli
Future systems on chips (SoCs) will integrate a large number of processor and storage cores onto a single chip and require networks on chip (NoC) to support the heavy communication demands of the system. The individual components of the SoCs will be heterogeneous in nature with widely varying functionality and communication requirements. The communication infrastructure should optimally match communication patterns among these components accounting for the individual component needs. In this paper we present /spl times/pipesCompiler, a tool for automatically instantiating an application-specific NoC for heterogeneous multi-processor SoCs. The /spl times/pipesCompiler instantiates a network of building blocks from a library of composable soft macros (switches, network interfaces and links) described in SystemC at the cycle-accurate level. The network components are optimized for that particular network and support reliable, latency-insensitive operation. Example systems with application-specific NoCs built using the /spl times/pipesCompiler show large savings in area (factor of 6.5), power (factor of 2.4) and latency (factor of 1.42) when compared to a general-purpose mesh-based NoC architecture.
{"title":"/spl times/pipesCompiler: a tool for instantiating application specific networks on chip","authors":"A. Jalabert, S. Murali, L. Benini, G. Micheli","doi":"10.1109/DATE.2004.1268999","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/DATE.2004.1268999","url":null,"abstract":"Future systems on chips (SoCs) will integrate a large number of processor and storage cores onto a single chip and require networks on chip (NoC) to support the heavy communication demands of the system. The individual components of the SoCs will be heterogeneous in nature with widely varying functionality and communication requirements. The communication infrastructure should optimally match communication patterns among these components accounting for the individual component needs. In this paper we present /spl times/pipesCompiler, a tool for automatically instantiating an application-specific NoC for heterogeneous multi-processor SoCs. The /spl times/pipesCompiler instantiates a network of building blocks from a library of composable soft macros (switches, network interfaces and links) described in SystemC at the cycle-accurate level. The network components are optimized for that particular network and support reliable, latency-insensitive operation. Example systems with application-specific NoCs built using the /spl times/pipesCompiler show large savings in area (factor of 6.5), power (factor of 2.4) and latency (factor of 1.42) when compared to a general-purpose mesh-based NoC architecture.","PeriodicalId":335658,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116620063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2004-02-16DOI: 10.1109/DATE.2004.1268876
H. Posadas, F. Herrera, P. Sánchez, E. Villar, Francisco Blasco
As both the ITRS and the Medea+ DA Roadmaps have highlighted, early performance estimation is an essential step in any SoC design methodology based on International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (2001) and The MEDEA+ Design Automation Roadmap (2002). This paper presents a C++ library for timing estimation at system level. The library is based on a general and systematic methodology that takes as input the original SystemC source code without any modification and provides the estimation parameters by simply including the library within a usual simulation. As a consequence, the same models of computation used during system design are preserved and all simulation conditions are maintained. The method exploits the advantages of dynamic analysis, that is, easy management of unpredictable data-dependent conditions and computational efficiency compared with other alternatives (ISS or RT simulation, without the need for SW generation and compilation and HW synthesis). Results obtained on several examples show the accuracy of the method. In addition to the fundamental parameters needed for system-level design exploration, the proposed methodology allows the designer to include capture points at any place in the code. The user can process the corresponding captured events for unrestricted timing constraint verification.
{"title":"System-level performance analysis in SystemC","authors":"H. Posadas, F. Herrera, P. Sánchez, E. Villar, Francisco Blasco","doi":"10.1109/DATE.2004.1268876","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/DATE.2004.1268876","url":null,"abstract":"As both the ITRS and the Medea+ DA Roadmaps have highlighted, early performance estimation is an essential step in any SoC design methodology based on International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (2001) and The MEDEA+ Design Automation Roadmap (2002). This paper presents a C++ library for timing estimation at system level. The library is based on a general and systematic methodology that takes as input the original SystemC source code without any modification and provides the estimation parameters by simply including the library within a usual simulation. As a consequence, the same models of computation used during system design are preserved and all simulation conditions are maintained. The method exploits the advantages of dynamic analysis, that is, easy management of unpredictable data-dependent conditions and computational efficiency compared with other alternatives (ISS or RT simulation, without the need for SW generation and compilation and HW synthesis). Results obtained on several examples show the accuracy of the method. In addition to the fundamental parameters needed for system-level design exploration, the proposed methodology allows the designer to include capture points at any place in the code. The user can process the corresponding captured events for unrestricted timing constraint verification.","PeriodicalId":335658,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117005244","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2004-02-16DOI: 10.1109/DATE.2004.1269064
S. Khawam, S. Baloch, A. Pai, Imran Ahmed, N. Aydin, T. Arslan, F. Westall
Mobile video processing as defined in standards like MPEG-4 and H.263 contains a number of timeconsuming computations that cannot be efficiently executed on current hardware architectures. The authors recently introduced a reconfigurable SoC platform that permits a low-power, high-throughput and flexible implementation of the motion estimation and DCT algorithms. The computations are done using domainspecific reconfigurable arrays that have demonstrated up to 75% reduction in power consumption when compared to generic FPGA architecture, which makes them suitable for portable devices. This paper presents and compares different configurations of the arrays to efficiently implementing DCT and motion estimation algorithms. A number of algorithms are mapped into the various reconfigurable fabrics demonstrating the flexibility of the new reconfigurable SoC architecture and its ability to support a number of implementations having different performance characteristics.
{"title":"Efficient implementations of mobile video computations on domain-specific reconfigurable arrays","authors":"S. Khawam, S. Baloch, A. Pai, Imran Ahmed, N. Aydin, T. Arslan, F. Westall","doi":"10.1109/DATE.2004.1269064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/DATE.2004.1269064","url":null,"abstract":"Mobile video processing as defined in standards like MPEG-4 and H.263 contains a number of timeconsuming computations that cannot be efficiently executed on current hardware architectures. The authors recently introduced a reconfigurable SoC platform that permits a low-power, high-throughput and flexible implementation of the motion estimation and DCT algorithms. The computations are done using domainspecific reconfigurable arrays that have demonstrated up to 75% reduction in power consumption when compared to generic FPGA architecture, which makes them suitable for portable devices. This paper presents and compares different configurations of the arrays to efficiently implementing DCT and motion estimation algorithms. A number of algorithms are mapped into the various reconfigurable fabrics demonstrating the flexibility of the new reconfigurable SoC architecture and its ability to support a number of implementations having different performance characteristics.","PeriodicalId":335658,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition","volume":"130 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114711740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2004-02-16DOI: 10.1109/DATE.2004.1268903
D. G. Pérez, Gilles Mouchard, O. Temam
SystemC is rapidly gaining wide acceptance as a simulation framework for SoC and embedded processors. While its main assets are modularity and the very fact it is becoming a de facto standard, the evolution of the SystemC framework (from version 0.9 to version 2.0.1) suggests the environment is particularly geared toward increasing the framework functionalities rather than improving simulation speed. For cycle-level simulation, speed is a critical factor as simulation can be extremely slow, affecting the extent of design space exploration. In this article, we present a fast SystemC engine that, in our experience, can speed up simulations by a factor of 1.93 to 3.56 over SystemC 2.0.1. This SystemC engine is designed for cycle-level simulators and for the moment, it only supports the subset of the SystemC syntax (signals, methods) that is most often used for such simulators. We achieved greater speed (1) by completely rewriting the SystemC engine and improving the implementation software engineering, and (2) by proposing a new scheduling technique, intermediate between SystemC dynamic scheduling technique and existing static scheduling schemes. Unlike SystemC dynamic scheduling, our technique removes many if not all useless process wake-ups, while using a simpler scheduling algorithm than in existing static scheduling techniques.
{"title":"A new optimized implementation of the SystemC engine using acyclic scheduling","authors":"D. G. Pérez, Gilles Mouchard, O. Temam","doi":"10.1109/DATE.2004.1268903","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/DATE.2004.1268903","url":null,"abstract":"SystemC is rapidly gaining wide acceptance as a simulation framework for SoC and embedded processors. While its main assets are modularity and the very fact it is becoming a de facto standard, the evolution of the SystemC framework (from version 0.9 to version 2.0.1) suggests the environment is particularly geared toward increasing the framework functionalities rather than improving simulation speed. For cycle-level simulation, speed is a critical factor as simulation can be extremely slow, affecting the extent of design space exploration. In this article, we present a fast SystemC engine that, in our experience, can speed up simulations by a factor of 1.93 to 3.56 over SystemC 2.0.1. This SystemC engine is designed for cycle-level simulators and for the moment, it only supports the subset of the SystemC syntax (signals, methods) that is most often used for such simulators. We achieved greater speed (1) by completely rewriting the SystemC engine and improving the implementation software engineering, and (2) by proposing a new scheduling technique, intermediate between SystemC dynamic scheduling technique and existing static scheduling schemes. Unlike SystemC dynamic scheduling, our technique removes many if not all useless process wake-ups, while using a simpler scheduling algorithm than in existing static scheduling techniques.","PeriodicalId":335658,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115074123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2004-02-16DOI: 10.1109/DATE.2004.1269268
P. Daglio, D. Iezzi, Danilo Rimondi, C. Roma, Salvatore Santapa
Main concerns related to post-layout simulation, today, are about the format of the netlist coming out from the parasitic extractor. In fact, such a netlist is usually flat so that readability, whether compared to the pre-layout hierarchical one, is very poor due to device and net names which often change and to the difficulty to compare pre-layout and post-layout output signals. Furthermore, simulating such large flat netlists is frequently time consuming because it is not possible to exploit algorithms like hierarchical array reduction (HAR) and isomorphic matching (IM), strength points of state-of-the-art full chip simulators. In this paper, we present a new approach that, starting from a flat netlist with parasitic components and a pre-layout hierarchical one, allows to create a fully hierarchical post-layout netlist containing device parameters and parasitic components directly extracted from the layout. In this way, a fast and accurate post-layout simulation is made possible by the use of look-up table simulators, taking advantages from the HAR and IM algorithms as mentioned before. This methodology has been integrated in a complete design flow to guarantee first silicon success, cut down time-to-design, improve time-to-market and streamline design quality.
{"title":"Building the hierarchy from a flat netlist for a fast and accurate post-layout simulation with parasitic components","authors":"P. Daglio, D. Iezzi, Danilo Rimondi, C. Roma, Salvatore Santapa","doi":"10.1109/DATE.2004.1269268","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/DATE.2004.1269268","url":null,"abstract":"Main concerns related to post-layout simulation, today, are about the format of the netlist coming out from the parasitic extractor. In fact, such a netlist is usually flat so that readability, whether compared to the pre-layout hierarchical one, is very poor due to device and net names which often change and to the difficulty to compare pre-layout and post-layout output signals. Furthermore, simulating such large flat netlists is frequently time consuming because it is not possible to exploit algorithms like hierarchical array reduction (HAR) and isomorphic matching (IM), strength points of state-of-the-art full chip simulators. In this paper, we present a new approach that, starting from a flat netlist with parasitic components and a pre-layout hierarchical one, allows to create a fully hierarchical post-layout netlist containing device parameters and parasitic components directly extracted from the layout. In this way, a fast and accurate post-layout simulation is made possible by the use of look-up table simulators, taking advantages from the HAR and IM algorithms as mentioned before. This methodology has been integrated in a complete design flow to guarantee first silicon success, cut down time-to-design, improve time-to-market and streamline design quality.","PeriodicalId":335658,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference and Exhibition","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2004-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115133464","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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