Transition-aware decoupling-capacitor allocation in power noise reduction

— Dynamic power noises may not only degrade the circuit performance but also reduce the noise margin which may result in the functional errors in integrated circuit. Decoupling capacitor (decap) allocation is one of the most effective way in reducing serious dynamic power noises (hotspots). To allocate decap before placement, we observed that not only locations but also rising time of functional cells are required to accurately predict power noises. Compared to a previous work which only takes neighborhood relation into consideration, our method is more efficient in reducing hotspots. Furthermore, to reduce the hotspots after placement, instead of only using the empty space as proposed in the previous work, we move out cells in the area with serious power noise area (hot area). The obtained empty space can be used to accommodate decaps to further reduce the hotspots. The experimental result shows, compared to the previous work [1], our estimation function to allocate decap before pl...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: ICCAD
• Authors: Po-Yuan Chen, Che-Yu Liu, TingTing Hwang
• Keywords: Dynamic Power, Hardware, ICCAD 2008, Power Noise Area, Power Noises