From Wire Segments to RC Tree

•  Big idea: Replace every straight wire segment with pi model

Each wire
segment creates
its own RC circuit

Slide 65 © 2013, R.A. Rutenbar

From Wire Segments to Final RC Tree
•  Simplification: Recall a rule from basic circuits (or physics)
•  Parallel capacitors can be replaced by 1 capacitor with ∑ Ci

C1 C2 C3 C1+C2+C3
=
Note: each of the R’s,
C’s in this tree are
different numbers.
R, C depend on the
RC Tree geometry of each wire
segment.

Slide 66 © 2013, R.A. Rutenbar

VLSI CAD: Lecture 12.7
Logic to Layout ASIC Timing:
Interconnect Timing:
The Elmore Delay Model
Rob A. Rutenbar
University of Illinois
Using RC Trees for Interconnect Analysis
•  Lots of nice Electrical Engineering detail we could do, now…
•  …except not everybody in the class has this circuits-oriented background

•  Useful thing about RC tree model

•  It starts as a circuit…
•  …but it turns into a simple tree object
•  And a special computational walk on tree gives us all the delay information we need!
•  So, (almost) no circuits for us. Just the computational recipe for how to use tree

Slide 68 © 2013, R.A. Rutenbar