The Art of Timing Closure is written using a hands-on approach to describe advanced concepts and techniques using Multi-Mode Multi-Corner (MMMC) for an advanced ASIC design implementation. It focuses on the physical design, Static Timing Analysis (STA), formal and physical verification. The scripts in this book are based on Cadence® Encounter SystemTM. However, if the reader uses a different EDA tool, that tool’s commands are similar to those shown in this book. The topics covered are as follows: Data Structures Multi-Mode Multi-Corner Analysis Design Constraints Floorplan and Timing Placement and Timing Clock Tree Synthesis Final Route and Timing Design Signoff Rather than go into great technical depth, the author emphasizes short, clear descriptions which are implemented by references to authoritative manuscripts. It is the goal of this book to capture the essence of physical design and timing analysis at each stage of the physical design, and to show the reader that physical design and timing analysis engineering should be viewed as a single area of expertise. This book is intended for anyone who is involved in ASIC design implementation -- starting from physical design to final design signoff. Target audiences for this book are practicing ASIC design implementation engineers and students undertaking advanced courses in ASIC design.

iming, timing, timing! That is the main concern of a digital designer charged with designing a semiconductor chip. What is it, how is it T described, and how does one verify it? The design team of a large digital design may spend months architecting and iterating the design to achieve the required timing target. Besides functional verification, the t- ing closure is the major milestone which dictates when a chip can be - leased to the semiconductor foundry for fabrication. This book addresses the timing verification using static timing analysis for nanometer designs. The book has originated from many years of our working in the area of timing verification for complex nanometer designs. We have come across many design engineers trying to learn the background and various aspects of static timing analysis. Unfortunately, there is no book currently ava- able that can be used by a working engineer to get acquainted with the - tails of static timing analysis. The chip designers lack a central reference for information on timing, that covers the basics to the advanced timing veri- cation procedures and techniques.

Design and optimization of integrated circuits are essential to the creation of new semiconductor chips, and physical optimizations are becoming more prominent as a result of semiconductor scaling. Modern chip design has become so complex that it is largely performed by specialized software, which is frequently updated to address advances in semiconductor technologies and increased problem complexities. A user of such software needs a high-level understanding of the underlying mathematical models and algorithms. On the other hand, a developer of such software must have a keen understanding of computer science aspects, including algorithmic performance bottlenecks and how various algorithms operate and interact. "VLSI Physical Design: From Graph Partitioning to Timing Closure" introduces and compares algorithms that are used during the physical design phase of integrated-circuit design, wherein a geometric chip layout is produced starting from an abstract circuit design. The emphasis is on essential and fundamental techniques, ranging from hypergraph partitioning and circuit placement to timing closure.

An elegant and counterintuitive guide to achieving perfect timing Timing is everything. Whether we are making strategic business decisions or the smallest personal choice, we must decide not only what to do, but when to do it. Act too early—or too late—and the results can be disastrous. Based on a 20-year investigation into more than 2,000 timing issues and errors, When presents a single and practical approach for dealing with timing in life and business. Good timing, Albert argues, is not just a matter of luck, intuition, or past experience—all of which may be unreliable—but a skill. He describes that skill and details the tools and methods needed to conduct a successful timing analysis. The book is the first to offer an efficient and comprehensive way to think through any timing issue Filled with dozens of lively stories illustrating good and bad timing in all walks of life—business, warfare, medicine, sports, entertainment and the arts Written by Stuart Albert, one of the foremost timing experts in the world and developer of the first practical, research-based method for turning the skill of timing into a competitive advantage Engaging and counterintuitive, When will show everyone, regardless of the work they do, or the life they live, that "it's all in the timing."

Recent years have seen rapid strides in the level of sophistication of VLSI circuits. On the performance front, there is a vital need for techniques to design fast, low-power chips with minimum area for increasingly complex systems, while on the economic side there is the vastly increased pressure of time-to-market. These pressures have made the use of CAD tools mandatory in designing complex systems. Timing Analysis and Optimization of Sequential Circuits describes CAD algorithms for analyzing and optimizing the timing behavior of sequential circuits with special reference to performance parameters such as power and area. A unified approach to performance analysis and optimization of sequential circuits is presented. The state of the art in timing analysis and optimization techniques is described for circuits using edge-triggered or level-sensitive memory elements. Specific emphasis is placed on two methods that are true sequential timing optimizations techniques: retiming and clock skew optimization. Timing Analysis and Optimization of Sequential Circuits covers the following topics: Algorithms for sequential timing analysis Fast algorithms for clock skew optimization and their applications Efficient techniques for retiming large sequential circuits Coupling sequential and combinational optimizations. Timing Analysis and Optimization of Sequential Circuits is written for graduate students, researchers and professionals in the area of CAD for VLSI and VLSI circuit design.

Covers the statistical analysis and optimization issues arising due to increased process variations in current technologies. Comprises a valuable reference for statistical analysis and optimization techniques in current and future VLSI design for CAD-Tool developers and for researchers interested in starting work in this very active area of research. Written by author who lead much research in this area who provide novel ideas and approaches to handle the addressed issues

Statistical timing analysis is an area of growing importance in nanometer te- nologies‚ as the uncertainties associated with process and environmental var- tions increase‚ and this chapter has captured some of the major efforts in this area. This remains a very active field of research‚ and there is likely to be a great deal of new research to be found in conferences and journals after this book is published. In addition to the statistical analysis of combinational circuits‚ a good deal of work has been carried out in analyzing the effect of variations on clock skew. Although we will not treat this subject in this book‚ the reader is referred to [LNPS00‚ HN01‚ JH01‚ ABZ03a] for details. 7 TIMING ANALYSIS FOR SEQUENTIAL CIRCUITS 7.1 INTRODUCTION A general sequential circuit is a network of computational nodes (gates) and memory elements (registers). The computational nodes may be conceptualized as being clustered together in an acyclic network of gates that forms a c- binational logic circuit. A cyclic path in the direction of signal propagation 1 is permitted in the sequential circuit only if it contains at least one register . In general, it is possible to represent any sequential circuit in terms of the schematic shown in Figure 7.1, which has I inputs, O outputs and M registers. The registers outputs feed into the combinational logic which, in turn, feeds the register inputs. Thus, the combinational logic has I + M inputs and O + M outputs.