Incremental statistical static timing analysis with gate timing yield emphasis

Incremental analysis is indispensible for efficient circuit optimization, as it analyzes the effect by the modified circuit part only instead of analyzing a whole circuit again from beginning. This paper presents a new incremental statistical static timing analysis (SSTA) method, called timing yield-based incremental analysis (TYIA). TYIA uses the probability that the gate timing slack is non-negative to prune the timing change propagation after a gate replacement. In the experimental results using ISCAS-85 benchmarks, TYIA showed 2~5 times better accuracy in timing yield analysis at comparable efficiency, when compared to the existing incremental SSTA methods.