Patent ID: 7801718

Claim:
A method of determining an uncertainty associated with at least a portion of a mesh circuit, comprising: (a) creating an approximate model of one or more circuit elements of a mesh circuit residing outside a window that covers a subset of the mesh circuit; (b) creating a more accurate model of one or more circuit elements of the mesh circuit residing within the window, wherein creating the more accurate model, includes creating a model of a drive circuit comprising a source and a plurality of sinks; computing a set of sink timing values for a drive signal arriving at the respective drive circuit sink by using variations of one or more parameters potentially affecting the model of the drive circuit; (c) performing a plurality of Monte Carlo simulations on the mesh circuit represented by the combination of the more accurate model of one or more circuit elements residing within the window and the approximate model of one or more circuit elements residing outside the window respective circuit elements, wherein the sink timing values of the drive circuit are used in at least one of the plurality of simulations of the mesh circuit as inputs to the mesh buffers coupled to the respective drive circuit sinks; and (d) determining an uncertainty associated with at least a portion of the mesh circuit based at least in part on results obtained from the plurality of Monte Carlo simulations on the mesh circuit.