Automatic Clock Tree Synthesis Exception Generation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing complexity of semiconductor chip design due to high integration densities makes it challenging to optimize clock tree synthesis, as existing methods struggle to efficiently ignore sequential circuit elements that do not require clock skew minimization, leading to suboptimal clock tree generation.
Innovation Solution
Automatically generating clock tree synthesis exceptions by identifying sequential circuit elements that cannot balance clock skew due to structural reasons, lack timing relationships, or have sufficient slack, allowing the CTS engine to ignore these elements during clock skew minimization, thereby optimizing the clock tree synthesis process.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If clock tree synthesis attempts to minimize clock skew for all sequential circuit elements, then clock skew minimization is improved, but device complexity and computation time increase due to processing all elements including those that do not require optimization
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes sequential circuit elements from the CTS optimization process that do not require clock skew minimization. By identifying and excluding these elements (such as those with insufficient slack or no timing relationships), the system reduces the complexity of processing while maintaining optimization effectiveness for the remaining critical elements.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different treatment to different sequential circuit elements based on their specific characteristics. Elements with sufficient slack or no timing relationships are excluded from optimization, while elements that do require skew minimization are processed. This localized approach optimizes the CTS process for critical elements without wasting resources on non-critical elements.
2Reliability
If clock tree synthesis processes all sequential circuit elements, then completeness is improved, but productivity decreases due to unnecessary processing of elements that do not require optimization
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes sequential circuit elements from the CTS optimization process that do not require clock skew minimization. By identifying and excluding these elements (such as those with insufficient slack or no timing relationships), the system reduces the complexity of processing while maintaining optimization effectiveness for the remaining critical elements.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of processing all sequential circuit elements, the patent applies partial action by optimizing only the subset of elements that actually require clock skew minimization. This selective approach maintains sufficient reliability for critical timing paths while significantly improving productivity by avoiding unnecessary processing of non-critical elements.
3Manufacturing precision
If the CTS engine attempts to balance clock skew for all sequential elements, then timing accuracy is improved, but the time required for synthesis increases due to processing elements with sufficient slack
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes sequential circuit elements from the CTS optimization process that do not require clock skew minimization. By identifying and excluding these elements (such as those with insufficient slack or no timing relationships), the system reduces the complexity of processing while maintaining optimization effectiveness for the remaining critical elements.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of processing all sequential circuit elements, the patent applies partial action by optimizing only the subset of elements that actually require clock skew minimization. This selective approach maintains sufficient reliability for critical timing paths while significantly improving productivity by avoiding unnecessary processing of non-critical elements.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and techniques are described for automatically generating clock tree synthesis (CTS) exceptions. The process can use on one or more criteria to identify sequential circuit elements that can be ignored during clock skew minimization. For example, the process can identify sequential circuit elements whose clock skew cannot be balanced with other sequential circuit elements due to structural reasons, identify sequential timing elements that do not have a timing relationship with other sequential timing elements in the clock tree, and/or identify sequential circuit elements whose data pins have a sufficiently large slack so that clock skew is not expected to cause timing violations at any of the data pins. Next, the process can generate clock tree exceptions based on the identified sequential circuit elements.