SigmaDVD: High Coverage Solution for Power Integrity Signoff

SigmaDVD (sDVD) is a unique simulation method that provides complete power grid noise coverage for 100% of the design instances. This novel simulation technique generates tens of thousands of unique switching scenarios for each instance independently, using Monte Carlo techniques, and gathers the results into a distribution with a known three-sigma DVD value (sDVD) per instance. This analysis closes a known gap in power grid noise coverage available from other methods, such as vectorbased and vectorless direct transient simulations as well as BQM. The main considerations when comparing this new IR-Drop flow with other techniques are coverage (what % of hotspots from other IR-Drop methods does sDVD cover?) and how to handle the increase in hotspots/violating instances caused by the massive increase in noise coverage. We quantified this new flow's coverage capabilities through heatmap comparisons. In this presentation, we will first discuss the theory of sDVD, various trials we conducted to compare sDVD with other IR-Drop methods, and main conclusions (such as cost/coverage) based on our analyses. To demonstrate the added value from sDVD, we investigated sDVD's coverage of post-silicon identified outliers.