Osculating Thevenin model for predicting delay and slew of capacitively characterized cells

To extrapolate from one point to another using a line, one had better get the slope right. In this paper we apply a similar concept to the important problem in Static Timing Analysis (STA) of predicting cell timing for RC loads using capacitive characterization data. Instead of a line we have a Thevenin circuit, and instead of matching slopes we match load sensitivities. We present a table driven, highly accurate cell delay and slew prediction procedure that can improve STA when interconnect effects dominate. It is significantly more accurate (especially slew) than previously published C_eff methods.