Patent ID: 8438520

Claim:
A method of determining a required number of decoupling capacitors, and approximate locations for said decoupling capacitors, for a region of an integrated circuit, comprising: entering switching elements of said region into a simulation program running on a computerized device; entering a power-supply voltage compression target into said simulation program, said power-supply voltage compression target comprising a quantitative measure of a difference between a first power supply voltage value that occurs before a switching event and a second power supply voltage value that occurs during a switching event; generating, using said simulation program, a total number of decoupling capacitors required to satisfy said compression target when all said switching elements concurrently switch; and for each element of said switching elements: generating, using said simulation program, a secondary number of decoupling capacitors required to satisfy said compression target when only said element switches; calculating a fraction of said secondary number to said total number; and placing said fraction of said total number of decoupling capacitors in electrical proximity to said element.