Rapid design flows for advanced technology pathfinding

Several innovative modifications to standard design flows are described which enable new device technologies to be rapidly assessed at the system level. Cell libraries from these rapid flows are employed by a design flow description language (PSYCHIC) for the exploration of highly speculative ldquowhat ifrdquo scenarios. These rapid design flows are used to explore the performance of two competing 15 nm technologies in a system L2 cache controller and a PSYCHIC analysis of statistical timing variations in a 45 nm memory concentrator.