This is a Research Planning Grant for Women Scientists and Engineers. A research program in determining the relationship between structural and physical interconnect in IC design is being planned. Typical area estimates for the structural design of an IC count the number and size of the structural modules, but ignores interconnect, which can use significant chip space. The approach is to design experiments which explore the relationships between register-transfer (RT) measures and area devoted to interconnects. Experiments are being conducted with designs produced by IC synthesis tools and statistical evaluation is being used to determine correlations. The first experiment is to establish relationships between the RT design and the physical design independent of particular cell bindings. The second experiment is to determine if a relationship exists among RT measures and interconnect area, and to characterize that relationship.
