Abstruct- We present efficient, optimal algorithms for timing optimization by discrete wire sizing and buffer insertion. Our algorithms are able to minimize a cost function subject to given timing constraints; we focus on minimization of dynamic power dissipation, but the algorithm is also easily adaptable to, for example, area minimization. In addition, the algorithm efficiently computes the complete, optimal power-delay trade-off curve for added design flexibility. An extension of our basic algorithm ac-commodates a generalized delay model which takes into account the effect of signal slew on buffer delay which can contribute substantially to overall delay. To the best of our knowledge, our approach represents the first work on buffer insertion to incorporate signal slew into the delay model while guaranteeing optimality. The effectiveness of these methods is demonstrated experimentally. NOMENCLATURE A routing tree rooted at node U. The left and right children of node v, respec-tively. Tree edge (wire) from node v to its parent. Length of edge e. Capacitance of edge e. Input capacitance of sink 'U. Resistance of edge e. Input capacitance of buffer b. Output resistance of buffer b or gate g. Intrinsic delay of buffer b or gate g. Polarity; usually referring to a signal, p = 1 meaning inverted. Polarity of buffer b; Pb = 1 indicating b is an inverter, Pb = 0 otherwise. Required arrival time of sink node U. Largest possible wire width (1... W are possi-ble). Buffer library. Set of leaves of tree T.

This paper presents a comprehensive survey of existing techniques for interconnect optimization during the VLSI physical design process, with emphasis on recent studies on interconnect design and optimization for high-performance VLSI circuit design under the deep submicron fabrication technologies. First, we present a number of interconnect delay models and driver/gate delay models of various degrees of accuracy and efficiency which are most useful to guide the circuit design and interconnect optimization process. Then, we classify the existing work on optimization of VLSI interconnect into the following three categories and discuss the results in each category in detail: (i) topology optimization for highperformance interconnects, including the algorithms for total wire length minimization, critical path length minimization, and delay minimization; (ii) device and interconnect sizing, including techniques for efficient driver, gate, and transistor sizing, optimal wire sizing, and simultaneous topology construction, buffer insertion, buffer and wire sizing; (iii) highperfbrmance clock routing, including abstract clock net topology generation and embedding, planar clock routing, buffer and wire sizing for clock nets, non-tree clock routing, and clock schedule optimization. For each method, we discuss its effectiveness, its advantages and limitations, as well as its computational efficiency. We group the related techniques according to either their optimization techniques or optimization objectives so that the reader can easily compare the quality and efficiency of different solutions.

This paper considers simultaneous gate and wire sizing for general VLSI circuits under the Elmore delay model. We present a fast and exact algorithm which can minimize total area subject to maximum delay bound. The algorithm can be easily modified to give exact algorithms for optimizing several other objectives (e.g. minimizing maximum delay or minimizing total area subject to arrival time specifications at all inputs and outputs). No previous algorithm for simultaneous gate and wire sizing can guarantee exact solutions for general circuits. Our algorithm is an iterative one with a guarantee on convergence to global optimal solutions. It is based on Lagrangian relaxation and "one-gate/wire-at-a-time" local optimizations, and is extremely economical and fast. For example, we can optimize a circuit with 13824 gates and wires in about 13 minutes using under 12 MB memory on an IBM RS/6000 workstation. 1 Introduction Since the invention of integrated circuits almost 40 years ago, gate si...

Buffer insertion seeks to place buffers on the wires of a signal net to minimize delay. Van Ginneken [14] proposed an optimal dynamic programming solution (with extensions proposed by [7] [8] [9] [12]) such that at most one buffer can be placed on a single wire. This constraint can hurt solution quality, but it may be circumvented by dividing each wire into multiple smaller segments. This work studies the problem of finding the correct number of segments for each wire in the routing tree. Too few segments yields sub-par solutions, but too many segments can lead to excessive run times and memory loads. We derive new theoretical results for computing the appropriate number of buffers (and hence wire segments) which motivate our new wire segmenting algorithm. We show that using wire segmenting as a precursor to buffer insertion produces solutions within a few percent of optimal, while using only seconds of CPU time. 1 Introduction The scaling of process technology and device and interco...

In the design of high performance VLSI systems, minimization of clock skew is an increasingly important objective. Additionally, wirelength of clock routing trees should be minimized in order to reduce system power requirements and deformation of the clock pulse at the synchronizing elements of the system. In this paper, we first present the Deferred-Merge Embedding (DME) algorithm, which embeds any given connection topology to create a clock tree with zero skew while minimizing total wirelength. The algorithm always yields exact zero skew trees with respect to the appropriate delay model. Experimental results show an 8% to 15% wirelength reduction over previous constructions in [17] [18]. The DME algorithm may be applied to either the Elmore or linear delay model, and yields optimal total wirelength for linear delay. DME is a very fast algorithm, running in time linear in the number of synchronizing elements. We also present a unified BB+DME algorithm, which constructs a clock tree t...

In this paper, we study the interconnect design problem under a distributed RC delay model. We study the impact of technology factors on the interconnect designs and present general formulations of the interconnect topology design and wiresizing problems. We show that interconnect topology optimization can be achieved by computing optimal generalized rectilinear Steiner arborescences and we present an efficient algorithm which yields optimal or near-optimal solutions. We reveal several important properties of optimal wire width assignments and present a polynomial time optimal wiresizing algorithm. Extensive experimental results indicate that our approach significantly outperforms other routing methods for high-performance IC and MCM designs. Our interconnect designs reduce the interconnection delays by up to 66% as compared to those by the best known Steiner tree algorithm. 1 Introduction As the VLSI fabrication technology reaches submicron device dimension and gigahertz frequency, ...

Interconnect has become the dominating factor in determining circuit performance and reliability in deep submicron designs. In this embedded tutorial, we first discuss the trends and challenges of interconnect design as the technology feature size rapidly decreases towards below 0.1 micron. Then, we present commonly used interconnect models and a set of interconnect design and optimization techniques for improving interconnect performance and reliability. Finally, we present comparisons of different optimization techniques in terms of their efficiency and optimization results, and show the impact of these optimization techniques on interconnect performance in each technology generation from the 0.35µm to 0.07µm projected in the National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors.

A closed-form expression for the propagation delay of a CMOS gate driving a distributed line is introduced that is within 5 % of dynamic circuit simulations for a wide range of loads. It is shown that the error in the propagation delay if inductance is neglected and the interconnect is treated as a distributed line can be over 35 % for current on-chip interconnect. It is also shown that the traditional quadratic dependence of the propagation delay on the length of the interconnect for lines approaches a linear dependence as inductance effects increase. On-chip inductance is therefore expected to have a profound effect on traditional high-performance integrated circuit (IC) design methodologies. The closed-form delay model is applied to the problem of repeater insertion in interconnect. Closed-form solutions are presented for inserting repeaters into lines that are highly accurate with respect to numerical solutions. models can create errors of up to 30 % in the total propagation delay of a repeater system as compared to the optimal delay if inductance is considered. The error between the and models increases as the gate parasitic impedances decrease with technology scaling. Thus, the importance of inductance in high-performance very large scale integration (VLSI) design methodologies will increase as technologies scale. Index Terms—CMOS, high-performance, high-speed interconnect, propagation delay, VLSI.

Buffer insertion has successfully been applied to reduce delay in global interconnect paths; however, existing techniques only optimize delay and timing slack. With the increasing ratio of coupling to total capacitance and the use of aggressive dynamic logic circuit families, noise is becoming a major design bottleneck. We present comprehensive buffer insertion techniques for noise and delay optimization. Our experiments on a microprocessor design show that our approach fixes all noise violations that were identified by a detailed, simulation-based noise analysis tool. Further, we show that the performance penalty induced by optimizing both delay and noise as opposed to only delay is 2%. 1.

This paper presents an e cient algorithm for buffered Steiner tree construction with wire sizing. Given a source and n sinks of a signal net, with given positions and a required arrival time associated with each sink, the algorithm finds a Steiner tree with buffer insertion and wire sizing so that the required arrival time (or timing slack) at the source is maximized. The unique contribution of our algorithm is that it performs Steiner tree construction, buffer insertion, and wire sizing simultaneously with consideration of both critical delay and total capacitance minimization by combining the performance-driven A-tree construction and dynamic programming based buffer insertion and wire sizing, while tree construction and the other delay minimization techniques were carried out independently in the past. Experimental results show the effectiveness of our approach.