Title :
Analysis of substrate thermal gradient effects on optimal buffer insertion
Author :
Ajami, A.H. ; Banerjee, K. ; Pedram, M.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng. Syst., Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Abstract :
Studies the effects of the substrate thermal gradients on the buffer insertion techniques. Using a non-uniform temperature-dependent distributed RC interconnect delay model, the buffer insertion problem is analyzed and design guidelines are provided to ensure the near-optimality of the signal performance in the presence of the thermal gradients. In addition, the effect of temperature-dependent driver resistance on the buffer insertion is studied. Experimental results show that neglecting thermal gradients in the substrate and the interconnect lines can result in non-optimal solutions when using standard buffer insertion techniques and that these effects intensify with technology scaling.
Keywords :
ULSI; buffer circuits; circuit optimisation; circuit simulation; delays; integrated circuit design; integrated circuit interconnections; integrated circuit modelling; thermal analysis; buffer insertion problem; design guidelines; distributed RC interconnect model; interconnect lines; nonuniform temperature-dependent delay model; optimal buffer insertion; signal performance; substrate thermal gradient effects; technology scaling; temperature-dependent driver resistance; thermal gradients; Current density; Delay; Guidelines; Integrated circuit interconnections; Power dissipation; Signal analysis; Temperature dependence; Thermal management; Topology; Wire;
Conference_Titel :
Computer Aided Design, 2001. ICCAD 2001. IEEE/ACM International Conference on
Conference_Location :
San Jose, CA, USA
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7247-6
DOI :
10.1109/ICCAD.2001.968596