( DAC 99 Item 55 ) ----------------------------------------------- [6/25/99]
SKEWED DATA One the more popular new tools 'discovered' at this year's
DAC was Ultima's ClockWise tool. It's a physical-level based tool that
tweaks your clock skew to optimize power and performance.
"Ultima's ClockWise - Ultima has a tool that modifies clock skew to
improve margins by changing branching points and inserting buffers
(about 20% more than normal). It is a point tool used after placement
and before routing. As a side effect, it also reduces peak current
by 30-40%. We ate lunch with one of the guys who wrote the program."
( http://www.ultimatech.com )
- an anon engineer
"Ultima's Clockwise (I thought this was pretty cool):
This is a clock tree synthesis tool. It will use clock skew to try
fixing timing problems. If a flip-flop has tight timing on one side
and relaxed timing on the other the tool will try to move the clock
edge toward the relaxed side.
In the design flow, Clockwise is post-placement and pre-routing.
It takes in DEF, a verilog netlist, .lib, LEF and primetime timing
constraints. It does a routing estimation and then inserts the clock
tree buffers and returns a DEF, a revised netlist, and an SDF."
- an anon engineer
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