Patent ID: 7886246
Filing Date: 2011-02-08
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of identifying failing timing requirements in a digital design, the method comprising: identifying, with a computer, at least one timing test in the digital design that has a passing slack in a base process corner and a failing slack in a different process corner, wherein the failing slack is computed via slack extrapolation by subtracting a multiple of the standard deviation of the sensitivity of the extrapolated failing slack to a first group of the variables from a mean slack and subtracting a multiple of the sensitivity of the extrapolated failing slack to a second group of the variables from the mean slack; computing a sensitivity of the failing slack to each of a plurality of variables of the at least one timing test; comparing each sensitivity to a respective sensitivity threshold; and if the sensitivity of at least one of the variables is greater than the respective sensitivity threshold and the projected failing slack is reduced due to the at least one of the variables moving to the opposite corner, determining with the computer that the at least one timing test fails if the at least one of the variables is not part of a variable group.