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x3 Drive Strength for Critical Path Cells

  
gate count               1512
number of cells           538
number of library cells   136
number of used cells       49
max fanin                  17
max input capacitance     207
max internal fanout        34
critical path  0fF       2173
critical path  6fF       2647

An x3 drive strength is added for all functions unless they are already so big that an x3 drive strength cell would be excessively large. By large, we mean here cells becoming much above 160λ or 20 tracks wide.

This means that an x3 drive strength has been added to all functions except

aoi211
nr4
oai31
xnr3
xooi21
xor3

For the xnr3, xor3 and xooi21 gates, an x3 drive strength is handled by coding the cell as a netlist. For example, the xnr3v1x3 is made from an xnr2v0x2 and an xor2v0x3.

xnr3v1x3 schematic

The purpose of this experiment is to improve the critical path by allowing the use of higher drive cells. The critical path from the previous experiment consists of x2 drive strength cells plus higher drive inverters, and looks maxed out in drive strength.

The higher drive strengths that are chosen by LOON out of the total drive strengths are shown below. 12% of all cells have been buffered up to an x3 drive strength, and the speed has improved by 7.7% as a consequence at the cost of an 8.9% area increase.

an2v0x3     2/3
aoi22v0x3   2/28
cgi2v0x3   12/21
iv1v0x3     2/79
nd2av0x3    1/1
nr2av0x3    1/1
nr2v0x3     1/92
nr3v0x3     1/8
oai21v0x3  28/31
xaon21v0x3  2/2
xoon21v0x3  2/35
xor2v0x3   11/99

TOTAL     65/538

The critical path is now mostly x3 drive strength cells and higher drive inverters, as shown below. The conclusion is that high drive gates are useful. The next experiments will extend the range of drive strengths for each function until the cell width bumps up against a 20 track or so limit.

    x 1          17                  210
 1  nd4v0x2       1  d->z      291    81
 2  oai21v0x3     4  b->z      393   102
 3  iv1v0x4       1  a->z      446    53
 4  oai21v0x3     4  a2->z     562   116
 5  iv1v0x4       1  a->z      615    53
 6  oai21v0x3     4  a2->z     741   126
 7  iv1v0x4       1  a->z      794    53
 8  oai21v0x3     4  a2->z     907   113
 9  iv1v0x4       1  a->z      959    52
10  oai21v0x3     4  a2->z    1075   116
11  xor2v0x1      1  b->z     1244   169
12  cgi2v0x3      3  b->z     1359   115
13  iv1v0x6       1  a->z     1408    49
14  cgi2v0x3      3  c->z     1518   110
15  iv1v0x6       1  a->z     1567    49
16  cgi2v0x3      4  c->z     1681   114
17  iv1v0x3       1  a->z     1730    49
18  nd2av0x3      1  a->z     1839   109
19  oai21v0x3     3  b->z     1944   105
20  xor2v0x3      1  b->z     2041    97
21  cgi2v0x3      2  a->z     2141   100
22  iv1v0x6       1  a->z     2190    49
23  cgi2v0x3      2  c->z     2267    77
24  an2v0x3       2  b->z     2385   118
25  an2v0x3       2  b->z     2529   144
26  xaon21v0x3    0  a2->z    2665   136
    r 15

Table of synthesis results  
  critical path (ps) gate count cell count porosity library cells used cells
synthesis 1 4279 1561 923 43%   9  8 basic inverters, NAND & NOR gates
synthesis 2 4236 1472 792 45%  15 12 AND & OR gates
synthesis 3 4157 1357 696 46%  19 16 AOI & OAI gates, 2/1 and 2/2
synthesis 4 4157 1357 696 46%  20 16 mxi2 2-way inverting mux
synthesis 5 3983 1343 668 48%  21 16 cgi2 carry generator inverting
synthesis 6 3948 1352 668 48%  28 18 inverters with multiple drive strengths
synthesis 7 3061 1433 666 51%  70 27 x2 drive strengths for all functions
synthesis 8 3056 1456 666 52%  70 30 BOOG with x1 drive strengths
synthesis 9 2960 1476 666 53%  70 32 BOOG with x05 drive strengths
synthesis 10 2963 1480 666 53%  76 34 nd2a and nr2a cells
synthesis 11 2963 1480 666 53%  79 34 nd2ab type of 2-OR
CyHP library 3778 1539 832 46%  18 17 Minimum size library
synthesis 12 2908 1362 553 54%  91 38 AND/OR into XOR/XNOR
synthesis 13 2893 1378 551 55% 103 39 aoi211, aoi31, oai211 & oai31
synthesis 14 2931 1400 562 55% 104 38 3-XOR gate, 1/2 stage delays
synthesis 15 2886 1390 536 56% 109 40 3-XOR/XNOR gates as 2×2-I/P gates
synthesis 16 2665 1514 538 60% 136 46 x3 drive strength cells
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