UCLA

Modeling and Optimization

for VLSI Layout

Professor Lei He
lhe@ee.ucla.edu

http://eda.ee.ucla.edu/

Programming homework

Last lecture: Placement
Today:
Wrap up placement
Interconnect modeling

Student presentation:
April 29
th
, Thermal modeling (by Mehul Shah)
May 2
nd
, Dynamic and leakage power modeling (Phoebe and Qun)

Read:
Three papers on interconnect modeling
Especially [Xu-He01] (checked on May 2
nd
)

Chapter 5 Interconnect RLC Modeling
Table and formula based capacitance extraction

Table and formula based inductance extraction

RC or RLC circuit model generation

Numeric based interconnect modeling
Capacitance Extraction
Introduction

Table lookup method

Formula-based method

Whats Capacitance?
Simplest model: parallel-plate capacitor
It has two parallel plates and homogeneous dielectric between them
The capacitance is
c permittivity of dielectric
A area of plate
d distance between plates
The capacitance is the capacity to store charge
charge at each plate is
one is positive, the other is negative

CV Q=
d
A
C c =
+
+

+
+

-

-


-

-

+Q
-Q
General Picture
For multiple conductors of any shapes and materials,
and in any dielectric, there is a capacitance between
any two conductors
m1
m3
m2
c
23
c
13
c
12
Mutual capacitance between m1 and m2 is C
12
= q
1
/v
2

q
1
is the charge of m1
v
1
=0 and v
3
= 0
Capacitance Matrix
Capacitance is often written as a symmetric matrix

m1
m3
m2
c
23
c
13
c
12
C = -c
21
c
22
-c
23
-c
31
-c
32
c
33
c
11
-c
12
-c
13
) (
1
i j c c
m
j
ij ii
= =

=
is the self-capacitance for a conductor
e.g., c
11
=c
12
+c
13


T m mm m
V C Q ) ( =
The charge is given by
e.g.,

3 13 2 12 1 11 1
v c v c v c q =
) ( ) (
3 1 13 2 1 12
v v c v v c + =
Application in VLSI Circuits
Total cap for a wire
delay, power
Mutual cap between wires
signal integrity
Conductors: metal wire, via, polysilicon, substrate
Dielectrics: SiO
2
,...
Characteristics of Coupling Capacitance
Coupling capacitance virtually exists only between adjacent
wires or crossing wires

Cx
Cx
Cx


O Capacitance can be pre-computed for a set of (localized)
interconnect structures

2.5D Capacitance Extraction
[Cong-He-Kahng-et al, DAC97]
Propose and validate five foundations to
simplify capacitance extraction
Develop a simple yet accurate 2.5D
capacitance extraction
Verification of Foundations

Method: 3D analysis by FastCap [Nabors-White, TCAD91]
Geometrical parameters: 0.18 process [NTRS94]

3.0
2.5
1.0
1.0
Key Factor to Enable Foundations

Minimum metal density requirement
Metals occupy > 30% area on anywhere on routing layer
Foundry may introduce dummy metals for metal sparse areas

dummy metal
Foundation I
Effect of Ground and Neighbors
Both ground, and neighboring wires on the
same layer, have significant shielding effects.
Thus, both must be considered for accurate
modeling.
Shielding Effect
of Ground and Neighbors
layer i
layer i-2
lumped capacitance for victim on layer i
coupling between victim and aggressor on layer i-2
C
i,i
C
i,i-2
C
i,i
C
i,i-2
no GND 458.4 130.1(28.4%)
Shielding Effect
of Ground and Neighbors
layer i
layer i-2
lumped capacitance for victim on layer i
coupling between victim and aggressor on layer i-2
C
i,i
C
i,i-2
C
i,i
C
i,i-2
no GND
+ GND
458.4 130.1(28.4%)
486.6 79.49(16.3%)
Shielding Effect
of Ground and Neighbors
layer i
layer i-2
lumped capacitance for victim on layer i
coupling between victim and aggressor on layer i-2
C
i,i
C
i,i-2
C
i,i
C
i,i-2
no GND
+ GND
458.4 130.1(28.4%)
486.6 79.49(16.3%)
+ neighbors 1428 24.77(1.8%)
Foundation II
Coupling between Layers i and i-2
Coupling between wires on layer i and wires
on layers i-2 is negligible when the metal
density on layer i exceeds a certain threshold.
Coupling between Layers i and i-2
layer i
layer i-1
layer i-2
lumped capacitance for victim on layer i
coupling between victim and aggressor on layer i-2
C
i,i
C
i,i-2
486.6 534.5 581.3 622.2 635.9
79.49 48.45 21.99 3.47 2.47
C
i,i
C
i,i-2
-- 2x 4x 8x 12x
Foundation III
Coupling Effect of Layers i+2 and i-2
During capacitance extraction for wires on
layer i, layers i+2 and i-2 can be treated as
ground planes with negligible error. There is
no need to look beyond layers i+2 and i-2.
Coupling Effect of Layers i+2 and i-2

i

i-1
i-2

i+1

i+2

layer
lumped capacitance for victim on layer i
coupling between victim and central crossover on layer i+1
C
i,i
C
i,i+1
coupling between victim and central crossunder on layer i-1
C
i,i-1
418.9
52.35
C
i,i
C
i,i+1
52.26
C
i,i-1
Coupling Effect of Layers i+2 and i-2

i

i-1
i-2

i+1

i+2

layer
lumped capacitance for victim on layer i
coupling between victim and central crossover on layer i+1
C
i,i
C
i,i+1
coupling between victim and central crossunder on layer i-1
C
i,i-1
418.9 418.9
52.35 52.59
C
i,i
C
i,i+1
52.26 52.53
C
i,i-1
Foundation IV
Coupling Effect of Neighbors
Coupling analysis to wires on the same
layer need only consider nearest neighbors
independently, with the widths of same-
layer neighbor wires having negligible
effect on the coupling.
Effect of Non-immediate Neighbors
victim
C
i,i
: lumped capacitance for victim.

layer i
C
l
C
r
C
i,i
1436
C
l
616.6
C
r
616.5
Effect of Non-immediate Neighbors
victim
victim
C
i,i
: lumped capacitance for victim.

layer i
C
l
C
r
C
l
C
r
C
i,i
1436 1436(0%)
C
l
616.6 639.8(+3%)
C
r
616.5 639.5(+3%)
Effect of Neighbor Widths
layer i
victim
w w
C
i,i
764.5 765.2 764.9 764.4
W 1 2 3 4
C
i,i
varies less that 0.3% for different neighbor widths.

S2


S1 S2 S2
2
Independence of Neighbors
C
i,i
differs less than 1.0%.
(S1,S2) (1,2) (1,3) (1,4) (1,)
lhs 639.2 600.0 582.5 559.7
rhs 638.0 597.1 578.9 553.1
victim
S1
S1
Foundation V
Interaction between Layers i-1 and i+1
The joint interaction of layers i-1 and i+1 on
layer i is negligible; therefore, corrections for
orthogonal crossovers and crossunders can be
performed independently.
i
i-1
i+1
layer
i+2
couplings between victim and crossunders
No crossover 36.01 37.20 36.99 37.58


Independence of Crossovers and
Crossunders
i
i-1
i+1
layer
i+2
couplings between victim and crossunders
No crossover 36.01 37.20 36.99 37.58
Full of crossovers

Independence of Crossovers and
Crossunders
Independence of Crossovers and
Crossunders
i
i-1
i+1
layer
i+2
couplings between victim and crossunders
No crossover 36.01 37.20 36.99 37.58
Full of crossovers 35.66 36.87 36.70 37.35

Table (Cap coefficients) generation
One-time use of 3-D method
Capacitance computation
table lookup with linear interpolation and
extrapolation
Table-Based
2.5D Capacitance Extraction
Table Generation for Lateral, Area and
Fringe Capacitances
layer i
w
s s
Functions of (w,s)
Pre-computed for per-side per unit-length
Table Generation for
Crossing Capacitances
layer i
Function of (w,s,w
c
,s
c
)
w
s
s
c
w
c
s
c
C
i,i
Per-corner C
over
(w,s,w
c
,s
c
) =
4
s
s
c
w
c
s
s
c
w
c
s
c
w
w
Table Generation for
Crossing Capacitances
Illustration of Capacitance Computation
victim
Compute the lumped cap for victim
victim
OFind Nearest Neighbors on Same Layer
victim
w
S1
L1
OAdd in Per-Side Area, Fringe and
Lateral Capacitances
Per-side area capacitance = C
A
(w,s1) * L1
Per-side fringe capacitance = C
F
(w,s1) * L1
Per-side lateral capacitance = C
L
(w,s1) * L1
victim
OAdd in Per-Side Area, Fringe and
Lateral Capacitances
victim
OFind All Crossovers and Crossunders
w
c
s
c
S1
victim
w
OAdd in Crossing Capacitances
Corner-by-Corner
One-corner crossover correction = C
over
(w,S1,w
c
,s
c
)
w
c
S1
victim
w
OAdd in Crossing Capacitances
Corner-by-Corner
One-corner crossover correction = C
over
(w,S1,w
c
,)
w
c
S1
victim
w
OAdd in Crossing Capacitances
Corner-by-Corner
One-corner crossover correction = C
over
(w,,w
c
,)
w
c
s
c
victim
w
OAdd in Crossing Capacitances
Corner-by-Corner
One-corner crossover correction = C
over
(w,,w
c
,s
c
)
Summary of Capacitance Computation
O Find nearest neighbors on the same layer
O Add in per-side lateral, area and fringe
capacitances w.r.t. each neighbor
O Find all crossovers and crossunders
O Add in crossing capacitances corner-by-corner
w.r.t. each crossover and crossunder
Sum of capacitance components in above steps
is the lumped capacitance of the victim.
Experimental Results
2 1/2-D 3-D Error
net1 6.53552pF 6.5713pF -0.54%
net2 3152.42pF 3261.17pF -3.33%
Good match in terms of lumped capacitance!
Formula based on
horizontal and vertical parameters

[Sakurai-Tamaru,ED83][Wu-Wong-et al,
ISCAS96]
single line
parallel lines
...

Single Line
[Sakurai-Tamaru,ED83]
w k k C + =
1 0 0
w
Fp
F
f
F
f
t
h
Unit-length cap

Error less than 6% when
)} ( 15 . 1 ) ( 80 . 2 {
222 . 0
h
w
h
t
+ = c
30 3 . 0
30 3 . 0
< <
< <
h
t
h
w
Single Line of Length L
[Sakurai-Tamaru,ED83]
w
t
h
Line of length L


} ) ( 12 . 4 ) 2 2 ( ) ( 40 . 1 ) ( 15 . 1 {
728 . 0 222 . 0
h
t
h
t
h
L w
L
L w C + + + =

c
} ) ( 80 . 2 ) ( 15 . 1 { /
222 . 0
h
t
h
w
L C + = c
Parallel Lines on Same Layer
[Sakurai-Tamaru,ED83]
w w s
t
h
Unit-length cap
} ) ]( ) ( 07 . 0 ) ( 83 . 0 ) ( 03 . 0 [ { '
34 . 1 222 . 0
0 0 s
h
h
t
h
t
h
w
C C + + = c
, 10 3 . 0 < <
h
w
, 10 3 . 0 < <
h
t
10 5 . 0 < <
h
s
Error less than 10% when
Parallel Lines on Same Layer
[Wu-Wong-et al, ISCAS96]
w w s
t
h
Unit-length cap
} ) ]( ) ( 07 . 0 ) ( 83 . 0 ) ( 03 . 0 [ 2
) ( 80 . 2 ) ( 15 . 1 {
34 . 1 222 . 0
222 . 0
s
h
h
t
h
t
h
w
h
t
h
w
C
+ +
+ = c
Recall [Sakurai-Tamaru,ED83]
w s
} ) ]( ) ( 227 . 1 ) ( 229 . 0 [ ) ( 977 . 2 {
0398 . 0 384 . 1 232 . 0
s
h
s
t
s
w
h
t
h
w
C + + + = c
Comparison


[Wu-Wong-et al] is better in smaller width and
spacing
, 2 . 1 15 . 0 < < t , 8 . 1 35 . 0 < < w
, 0 . 3 37 . 0 < < h 10 35 . 0 < < s
numerical
Wu-Wong-et al
Sakurai
Noramlzied space (s/h)
3
4
5
6
1 2 3 4 15
W=1.05um
W=0.7um
Parallel Lines within Two Grounds
[Wu-Wong-et al, ISCAS96]
w w s
t
h
1

One ground
w s
} ) ]( ) ( 227 . 1 ) ( 229 . 0 [ ) ( 977 . 2 {
0398 . 0 384 . 1 232 . 0
s
h
s
t
s
w
h
t
h
w
C + + + = c
h
1

Two grounds


where
} 628 . 0 ) ]( ) ( 348 . 1 ) ( 053 . 0 [
] ) ( ) [( 637 . 1 {
597 . 1
216 . 0 216 . 0
2 1
s
h
s
t
s
w
h
t
h
t
h
w
C
+ +
+ + = c
2 1
2 1
h h
h h
h
+