An analytical delay model for RLC interconnects

Abstract

We develop an analytical delay model based on first and second moments to incorporate inductance effects into the delay estimate for interconnection lines. Delay estimates using our analytical model are within 15% of SPICE-computed delay across a wide range of interconnect parameter values. We also extend our delay model for estimation of source-sink delays in arbitrary interconnect trees. For the small tree topology considered, we observe improvements of at least 18% in the accuracy of delay estimates when compared to the Elmore model (which is independent of inductance), even though our estimates are as easy to compute as the Elmore delay. The speedup of delay estimation via our analytical model is several orders of magnitude when compared to a simulation methodology such as SPICE.