A Bottom-Up Approach to On-Chip Signal Integrity

We present a new approach to accurately evaluate signal integrity in digital integrated circuits while working at the logic level. Our approach makes use of fitting models to represent the key properties of drivers, interconnects and receivers and the effects of all noise sources (supply noise, timing uncertainty, crosstalk). Such models are then combined to evaluate the correctness of each bit sent across the line. The overall result is a parameterized bit-level model of a noisy on-chip communication channel. The model can be used at the logic level to evaluate the transmission-error probability for an arbitrary bit stream, sent at an arbitrary bit rate, under arbitrary noise source assumptions