Parallel Acceleration Scheme for Monte Carlo Based SSTA Using Generalized STA Processing Element

Abstract

We propose a novel acceleration scheme for Monte Carlo based statistical static timing analysis (MC-SSTA). MC-SSTA, which repeatedly executes ordinary STA using a set of randomly generated gate delay samples, is widely accepted as an accuracy reference. A large number of random samples, however, should be processed to obtain accurate delay distributions, and software implementation of MC-SSTA, therefore, takes an impractically long processing time. In our approach, a generalized hardware module, the STA processing element (STA-PE), is used for the delay evaluation of a logic gate, and netlist-specific information is delivered in the form of instructions from an SRAM. Multiple STA-PEs can be implemented for parallel processing, while a larger netlist can be handled if only a larger SRAM area is available. The proposed scheme is successfully implemented on Altera's Arria II GX EP2AGX125EF35C4 device in which 26 STA-PEs and a 624-port Mersenne Twister-based random number generator run in parallel at a 116 MHz clock rate. A speedup of far more than ×10 is achieved compared to conventional methods including GPU implementation. key words: statistical static timing analysis, delay distribution, slew rate, field-programmable gate array, Mersenne Twister