VIP-an input pattern generator for identifying critical voltage drop for deep sub-micron designs

We present a novel input pattern generator for dynamic power network simulation. The obtained patterns successfully identify critical voltage drop areas for a set of industrial designs, which are difficult to be found using functional vectors. The search engine of the pattern generator for worst-case IR voltage drop is based on the multiobjective genetic algorithm. To achieve high coverage for critical voltage drop cells, we propose to model the search criteria into the maximum weighted matching of a bipartite graph, and guide the search direction according to the matching results. Experimental results show that, compared with the other approaches, our patterns give a higher coverage of critical voltage drop cells.