Power is an increasingly important performance metric, and must be considered during various design stages. With the advancement of multiple threshold devices, leakage power can be better controlled, utilizing fast and high-leakage devices just for critical paths, while low-leakage devices are used for non-critical parts to minimize power. In this paper, a practical timing graph-based algorithm is proposed to perform concurrent discrete optimization (assignment, device width biasing, device length biasing, etc) to minimize the power consumption, especially leakage, of a circuit subject to timing performance constraints. Our algorithm honors important constraints that are common to an industrial design methodology, including hierarchy, structural connectivity and layout-related rules. We demonstrate the performance of the algorithm in an industrial design automation platform consisting of an incremental transistor-level timing analysis engine and optimization environment.
By: Haifeng Qian; Emrah Acar
Published in: RC24324 in 2007
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