Fast, non-Monte-Carlo estimation of transient performance variation due to device mismatch

Authors:
Jaeha Kim;Kevin D. Jones;Mark A. Horowitz
Affiliations:
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea and Stanford University, Stanford, CA and Rambus, Inc., Los Altos, CA;Green Plug, Inc., San Ramon, CA and Rambus, Inc., Los Altos, CA;Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA and Rambus, Inc., Los Altos, CA
Venue:
IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems Part I: Regular Papers
Year:
2010

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Abstract

This paper describes an efficient way of simulating the effects of device random mismatch on circuit transient characteristics, such as variations in delay or in frequency. The proposed method models DC random offsets as equivalent AC pseudonoises and leverages the fast, linear periodically time-varying (LPTV) noise analysis available from RF circuit simulators. Therefore, the method can be considered as an extension to DCMATCH analysis and offers a large speed-up compared to the traditional Monte Carlo analysis. Although the assumed linear perturbation model is valid only for small variations, it enables easy ways to estimate correlations among variations and identify the most sensitive design parameters to mismatch, all at no additional simulation cost. Three benchmarks measuring the variations in the input offset voltage of a clocked comparator, the delay of a logic path, and the frequency of an oscillator demonstrate the speed improvement of about 100-1000 × compared to a 1000-point Monte Carlo method.