Patent ID: 8640062

Claim:
A method, in a data processing system, for estimating temperature rise in wires due to self heating, the method comprising: receiving, in the data processing system, a physical design for an integrated circuit, the physical design comprising one or more interconnect layers having a plurality of wires separated by a dielectric; computing, by the data processing system, a root mean square current through the plurality of wires based on switching activity and a resistor and capacitor netlist representing the one or more interconnect layers; generating, by the data processing system, a thermal network based on thermal couplings of the plurality of wires in the one or more interconnect layers based on the resistor and capacitor netlist; and determining, by the data processing system, a temperature rise in the plurality of wires based on the thermal network and the computed root mean square current, wherein generating the thermal network comprises: mapping a given resistor in the resistor and capacitor netlist, representing a wire or contact in the physical design, to a thermal resistor; and determining a thermal resistance, R T , of the thermal resistor as follows: R T = R E ρ × k , where ρ is a metal resistivity, k is a thermal conductivity of the wire or contact, and R E an electrical resistance of the wire or contact.