Worst Case RLC Noise with Timing Window Constraints

We study the problem of determining the switching patterns and switching times of multiple aggressors to generate the worst-case crosstalk noise (WCN) for a quiet victim in RLC interconnect structures under the constraints of both aggressor switching windows and the victim sampling window. We consider the signal routing direction and show that it has a significant impact under RLC model but not under RC model. We propose a new SS + AS algorithm that considers the timing window constraints and has linear time complexity and high accuracy, only underestimating WCN by 2% on average. We show that although RC model usually severely underestimates WCN with timing window constraints, it does overestimate when both the aggressor switching windows and the victim sampling window are small enough. We conclude that RLC model is needed for accurate modeling of WCN in GHz+ design.