Logic optimization for preferential shields
AssigneeSun Microsystems, Inc.
InventorsSudhakar Bobba, Tyler Thorp
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method that preferentially shields a signal to increase decoupling capacitance is provided. The signal is preferentially shielded based on a probability of the signal being at a specific value. Because the shield may also be used to form the power and ground grid, a balanced number of power versus ground lines is desired. A method for inverting the signal to balance the number of power versus ground lines is provided. Further, a method to increase system performance by increasing implicit decoupling capacitance is provided.
Claims14
A method for preferentially shielding a plurality of signal paths, wherein each of the plurality of signal paths has a value switchable between a first potential and a second potential, the method comprising;
- determining a probability for each of the plurality of signal paths that the value will be at the first potential versus the second potential;
- assigning a shield to each of the plurality of signal paths, wherein each shield is assigned a potential based upon the probability of the corresponding signal path;
- determining if an imbalanced state exists among the shields;
- and
- if the imbalanced state exists, inverting the value of one of the signal paths to reduce the imbalanced state.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.