Patent ID: 8670970

Claim:
A method for characterizing performance, over a simulation duration, of an electronic circuit having one or more cells, the method comprising: (a) executing a first computer-based simulation of the performance of the electronic circuit over the simulation duration to characterize values of a cell parameter for at least one cell; (b) executing multiple computer-based simulations of the performance of at least one cell, each of the multiple simulations simulating the performance of the at least one cell at a specific point in time within the simulation duration, based on at least one of the simulated values of the cell parameter corresponding to the specific point in time obtained during the first computer-based simulation; and (c) generating one or more metrics characterizing the performance of the electronic circuit based on results from the multiple simulations, wherein: the electronic circuit comprises a path p, defined as a sequence of one or more intermediate cells m connecting a first cell to a second cell, the total number of intermediate cells denoted m p ; the first simulation characterizes values of the cell parameter for at least one intermediate cell in the path over the simulation duration; for the at least one intermediate cell in the path, each of the multiple simulations comprises simulating the performance of the at least one intermediate cell at a specific point in time within the simulation duration, based on the at least one intermediate cell utilizing the cell parameter value corresponding to the specific point in time; and step (c) comprises generating the one or more metrics based on the results of the multiple simulations of the at least one intermediate cell.