Methods for characterization of electronic circuits under process variability effects

A method of determining an estimate of statistical properties of an electronic system comprising individual components subject to manufacturing process variability, the method comprising:

• (1) obtaining a description of the composition of the electronic system in terms of which individual components are used, the description using only standard cells without any additional hierarchical component;
• (2) obtaining statistical properties of the performance of individual components of the electronic system;
• (3) obtaining information about execution of an application on the system;
• (4) simulating execution of the application based on the obtained information about execution of the application on the system for a simulated electronic system realization constructed by selecting individual components with the obtained statistical properties determining the properties of the 1st and 2nd performance variables of the electronic system;
• (5) determining the statistical properties of the 1st and 2nd performance variables of the electronic system;
• (6) simulating execution of the application based on the obtained information about execution of the application on the system for another simulated electronic system realization constructed by selecting individual components with the obtained statistical properties determining the properties of the 1st and 2nd performance variables of the electronic system;
• and
• (7) updating the statistical properties of the 1st and 2nd performance variables of the electronic system;
• and
• (8) repetitively executing the simulating in (6) and the updating in (7),
• wherein the method is performed at least in part by at least one computing device.