System and method for determining timing characteristics of a circuit design

A system to facilitate design of an integrated circuit, comprising:

• a path tracer that traces paths associated with a given node of a circuit design, regardless of path transparency;
• and
• a calculator that determines timing characteristics associated with the given node based on timing information for the traced paths, a minimum timing characteristic being selected from the timing characteristics determined for the traced paths associated with the given node.

A system comprising:

• means for tracing at least one path that includes a given node of a circuit design by analyzing the at least one path transparently, the given node being capable of operating transparently and non-transparently;
• and
• means for determining potential slack for the given node, the potential slack corresponding to a minimum slack value determined from slack values associated with the given node, including a slack value associated with the at least one path, based on timing information for the at least one path.

A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing a method comprising:

• computing slack associated with a given node of a circuit design by analyzing each path associated with the given node transparently;
• and
• determining a potential slack value as a minimum of the computed slack associated with the given node.

A method comprising:

• determining a timing characteristic for a first path associated with a node of a given circuit design;
• determining the timing characteristic for at least a second path, regardless of path transparency, the second path including the node and at least a portion of the second path being capable of operating transparently and non-transparently, and
• providing an indication of timing performance associated with the node according to a minimum of the timing characteristic for a first path and the timing characteristic for at least a second downstream path.