1. 04/11/02EECS 3121 Lecture 26: Interconnect Modeling, continued EECS 312 Reading: 8.2.2, 8.3.4 (text) HW 8 is due now!

2. 04/11/02EECS 3122 Last Time Wire resistivity gets worse as wires get smaller (reverse scaling, different than device delay) Power distribution becomes more difficult due to IR drops and higher current densities Lumped wire delay overestimates actual delay (distributed) –Because the entire capacitance is NOT charged through the full wire resistance Wire RC delay increases quadratically with line length as both R and C rise linearly –This has implications on how to reduce RC delay

3. 04/11/02EECS 3123 Lecture Overview Combating RC delay –Repeaters Noise due to wires –Capacitive crosstalk; voltage glitches and increasing delay

4. 04/11/02EECS 3124 Delay expressions, revisit We will typically have a load capacitance C L at node V out Assumes step input Vin

5. 04/11/02EECS 3125 How to reduce RC delay Since RC delay is quadratic with length, reducing length is key Note: 2 2 = 4 and 1+1 = 2 but 1 2 + 1 2 = 2 driverreceiver driver receiver L = 2 units

6. 04/11/02EECS 3126 Repeaters Repeater A repeater is a strong driver (usually an inverter or pair of inverters for non-inversion) that is placed along a long RC line to “break up” the line and reduce delay We need to determine the optimal number of repeaters and their size based on wire and device delay properties

7. 04/11/02EECS 3127 Repeater Derivation Eq. 8.34 of text

8. 04/11/02EECS 3128 Repeaters Impact Repeaters are simply large inverters inserted along a global interconnect to reduce the RC delay

9. 04/11/02EECS 3129 Repeaters vs. Cascaded Buffers Repeaters are used to drive long RC lines –Breaking up the quadratic dependence of delay on line length is the goal –Typically sized identically Cascaded buffers are used to drive large capacitive loads, where there is no parasitic resistance –We put all buffers at the beginning of the load –This would be pointless for a long RC wire since the wire RC delay would be unaffected and would dominate the total delay

10. 04/11/02EECS 31210 Capacitive Crosstalk Noise Due to interwire capacitance, neighboring wires can interact with each other This is referred to as crosstalk noise

11. 04/11/02EECS 31211 Cross-sectional view A quiet victim wire is imposed upon by one or more adjacent aggressor wires that are switching rapidly Charge injected across Cc results in a temporary (in static logic) glitch in voltage from the supply rail at the victim Dynamic logic is more susceptible since it’s non-restoring

12. 04/11/02EECS 31212 Noise Pulses can be large Impact: forward-bias drain-substrate p-n junctions, enhance device stress, falsely switch state of fan-out

13. 04/11/02EECS 31213 Simple Noise Model (Rubio) Model assumptions: no wire resistance considered, T r is rise time of aggressor signal, R v is the effective driver resistance of the victim, C v is the ground capacitance of the victim Vdd*Rv*Cc/Tr is the maximum possible noise  given by V=IR=Rv*Cc*dV/dt Last term relates to how easily the charge at the victim net can be removed through Rv relative to the transition time of aggressor where

14. 04/11/02EECS 31214 Linear Resistance Assumption Slope here is fairly constant with Vgs=Vdd (operating point for NMOS holding output to GND) Inverse of this slope ~ Reff Replace the victim driver by a linear resistor Only problem – if noise gets too big, the approximation becomes worse (R grows)

15. 04/11/02EECS 31215 How to Battle Capacitive Crosstalk Unrealistic – need tight packing to reduce chip area, cost

16. 04/11/02EECS 31216 Delay Degradation CcCc - Impact of neighboring signal activity on switching delay - When neighboring lines switch in opposite direction of victim line, delay increases Miller Effect - Both terminals of capacitor are switched in opposite directions (0  V dd, V dd  0) - Effective voltage is doubled and additional charge is needed (from Q=CV) – just like overlap capacitances in devices

17. 04/11/02EECS 31217 Lecture Summary Repeaters are inserted along long global wires to reduce the intrinsic wire RC delay –Common practice in mid-high performance designs today Crosstalk noise refers to injected charge across interwire (coupling) capacitance –A quiet wire can experience a voltage glitch as a result, leading to functional failure or worsened reliability –This can also increase delay, when adjacent lines switch at the same time in opposite directions