Patent ID: 7197438

Claim:
A memory compiler characterization method for determining parametric data associated with compilable memory instances, comprising: obtaining a first parametric dataset associated with a first plurality of memory compilers, said memory compilers for compiling a first set of memory instances, each instance having a select number of physical rows and a select number of physical columns, wherein each memory instance is organized using a first MUX factor and further wherein a data point in said first parametric dataset corresponds to a value with respect to a particular parameter characterized for a memory instance sampled from said first set of memory instances; obtaining a second parametric dataset by characterizing said particular parameter for a second set of memory instances that are compiled by a second plurality of memory compilers, each of said second plurality of memory compilers for compiling a respective memory instance organized with a second MUX factor, wherein said second plurality of memory compilers are sparsely sampled from said first plurality of memory compilers such that each memory instance compiled by said second plurality of memory compilers corresponds to a respective congruent memory instance of said first parametric dataset having identical numbers of physical rows and physical columns, and said second plurality of memory compilers comprises a subset of said first plurality of memory compilers. determining scale factors for a select number of parametric data points associated with respective congruent memory instances of said first and second parametric datasets; obtaining an interpolated scale factor based on said scale factors; and deriving a value of said particular parameter for an additional memory instance having said second MUX factor by applying said interpolated scale factor to a data point associated with a memory instance having said first MUX factor, wherein said memory instance with said first MUX factor is congruent with respect to said additional memory instance with said second MUX factor.