Power Grid Analysis in VLSI Designs - SERC

Table of ContentsAcknowledgements..................................................................................................................3Abstract ...................................................................................................................................111 Introduction ...................................................................................................................131.1 Motivation........................................................................................................................................131.1.1 Power Estimation ................................................................................................................................... 161.1.2 Power Supply Noise ............................................................................................................................... 171.1.3 MTCMOS Analysis ................................................................................................................................. 221.2 Terms ..............................................................................................................................................241.3 Thesis outline and Contribution......................................................................................................252 Toggle Activity Estimation...........................................................................................272.1 Overview .........................................................................................................................................272.2 Toggle Activity Estimation ..............................................................................................................292.3 Multi-million gate solution ...............................................................................................................302.3.1 Deriving automatic toggle frequency values.............................................................................................. 312.3.2 Hierarchical Modeling ............................................................................................................................. 352.4 Validation and Results....................................................................................................................372.5 Summary.........................................................................................................................................383 Power Estimation..........................................................................................................393.1 Overview .........................................................................................................................................393.2 Current approaches to Power Analysis..........................................................................................423.3 Power analysis Tools......................................................................................................................453.3.1 Power Compiler: [67] .............................................................................................................................. 453.3.2 Power Mill (or Nano Sim) [4][68].............................................................................................................. 463.3.3 Prime Power [66].................................................................................................................................... 473.3.4 Other Tools ............................................................................................................................................ 473.4 Validation Flow................................................................................................................................483.4.1 Netlist Setup:.......................................................................................................................................... 503.4.2 Vector Generation .................................................................................................................................. 503.4.3 Interconnect setup .................................................................................................................................. 513.5 Validation and Results....................................................................................................................513.6 Power estimation applications........................................................................................................603.6.1 Average power/ground bus currents ........................................................................................................ 603.6.2 Average power dissipation ...................................................................................................................... 613.6.3 Electro migration failures......................................................................................................................... 613.6.4 Power Routing........................................................................................................................................ 613.6.5 Gate Oxide Integrity Analysis .................................................................................................................. 623.7 Summary.........................................................................................................................................624 Power Supply Noise Analysis .....................................................................................634.1 Overview .........................................................................................................................................634.2 Cell Characterization.......................................................................................................................644.2.1 Current Characterization Methodology..................................................................................................... 654.2.2 Current Characterization Flow................................................................................................................. 714.3 Power Grid network modeling ........................................................................................................724.3.1 Power Grid Current Waveform Modeling.................................................................................................. 744.4 Complete Flow ................................................................................................................................785