Resistance is Futile! Building Better Wireload Models by Steve Golson
Abstract: Wireload models are like the weather. Many people talk about them, but not many people do anything about them! This paper will explore some of the myths and realities of wireload models:
- why wireload models are important, and why nobody understands them
- why your intuition is wrong
- why you shouldn’t trust your silicon vendor
- why floorplanning sometimes doesn’t matter
- why having an accurate wireload model is a bad idea
A technique for measuring the quality of wireload models will be described. Real-world results will be discussed. Cool graphics will be shown. A desperate plea for future work will be given.
This won the Best Paper Award. Yes, that makes three years in a row.
Here are Perl scripts for doing scatter_plots and ratio_plots. These scripts take timing reports from Synopsys Design Compiler and generate commands for gnuplot.
My SNUG 2001 paper uses similar plotting techniques.