Path-Specific Functional Timing Verification under Floating and Transition Modes of Operation
Chun-Ning Lai, Jie-Hong Roland Jiang · 2017
Functional timing analysis (FTA) overcomes the limitation of static timing analysis (STA) to allow distinction of false and true paths. Modern FTA methods exploit timed characteristic functions (TCFs) to implicitly calculate the longest true delay of a circuit. However, they are inadequate for the verification of timing exceptions, which is crucial for timing signoff, due to their implicit enumeration of all paths rather than specific paths of concern. We present the first TCF-based FTA method for path-specific timing verification under both floating and transition modes of operation. Experiments demonstrate the unique benefit and scalability of our method.