A fast and accurate delay dependent method for switching estimation of large combinational circuits

Assuming inertial gate delay model, the first-order temporal correlation and the structural dependencies, a probabilistic method to estimate the switching activity of a combinational circuit, is introduced. To capture the first temporal correlation a novel mathematical model and the associated new formulas are derived. Also, a modified boolean function, which describes the logic and timing behavior of each signal, is introduced. To capture the structural dependencies an efficient new method to partition a large circuit into small independent sub-circuits is proposed. Finally, an algorithm that evaluates the switching activity of any circuit node is presented. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.