Binning optimization for transparently-latched circuits

With increasing process variation, binning has become an important technique to improve the values of fabricated chips, especially in high performance microprocessors where transparent latches are widely used. In this paper, we formulate and solve the binning optimization problem that decides the bin boundaries and their testing order to maximize the profit (considering the test cost) for a transparently-latched circuit. The problem is decomposed into four sub-problems. First, to compute the clock period distribution of the transparently-latched circuit, a sample-based statistical static timing analysis (SSTA) approach is developed which is based on the generalized stochastic collocation method with the sparse grid technique. The minimal clock period on each sample point is found by solving a minimal cycle ratio problem in the constraint graph. Second, a greedy method is proposed to maximize profit considering both the sales revenue and the test cost by iteratively assigning each boundary to its optimal position. Third, an optimal algorithm of O(nlog n) runtime is used to generate the optimal testing order to minimize the test cost, based on alphabetic tree. Last, a simple approach is presented to decide the optimal number of bins, which helps to complete the whole binning scheme with maximal profit. Experiments on all the ISCAS'89 sequential benchmarks with 65 nm technology show 10.68% profit improvement in average. Some comparisons with other methods suggest the advantage of our method. The results also demonstrate that the proposed SSTA method achieves an error of 0.70% and speedup of 110 X in average compared with the Monte Carlo simulation.