Clock Skew Evaluation Considering Manufacturing Variability in Mesh-Style Clock Distribution

Shinya ABE  Masanori HASHIMOTO  Takao ONOYE  

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Fundamentals of Electronics, Communications and Computer Sciences   Vol.E91-A   No.12   pp.3481-3487
Publication Date: 2008/12/01
Online ISSN: 1745-1337
DOI: 10.1093/ietfec/e91-a.12.3481
Print ISSN: 0916-8508
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Section on VLSI Design and CAD Algorithms)
Category: Device and Circuit Modeling and Analysis
Keyword: 
mesh-style clock distribution,  clock skew,  

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Summary: 
Influence of manufacturing variability on circuit performance has been increasing because of finer manufacturing process and lowered supply voltage. In this paper, we focus on mesh-style clock distribution which is believed to be effective for reducing clock skew, and we evaluate clock skew considering manufacturing and design variabilities. Considering MOS transistor variation -- random and spatially-correlated variation -- and non-uniform flip-flop (FF) placement, we demonstrate that spatially-correlated variation and severe non-uniform FF distribution can be major sources of clock skew. We also examine the dependency of clock skew on design parameters, and reveal that finer clock mesh does not necessarily reduce clock skew.