A novel metric for interconnect architecture performance

We propose a new metric for evaluation of interconnect architectures. This metric is computed by optimal assignment of wires from a given wire length distribution (WLD) to a given interconnect architecture (IA). This new metric, the rank of an IA, is a single number that gives the number of connections in the WLD that meet a specific target delay when embedded in the IA. A dynamic programming algorithm is presented to exactly compute the rank of an IA with respect to a given WLD within practical runtimes. We use our new IA metric to quantitatively compare impacts of geometric parameters as well as process and material technology advances. For example, we observe that 42% reduction in Miller coupling factor achieves the same rank improvement as a 38% reduction in inter-layer dielectric permittivity for a 1 M gate design in the 130 nm technology.