In the flow

InVar can be used as early as in the placement stage. For not routed nets, proprietary "virtual routing" model will be used to estimate very accurate parasitics to for example do early power budgetting. InVar demonstrates accuracies that mirrors real life physical measurements at the post-route stage where more realistic parasitics are available. The tool can generate accurate thermal and electrical (IBIS) IC models in post-routing analysis run.

One of the possible use models for placed designs:

Integration with SPICE simulators

SPICE simulator can use InVar to perform more accurate analog simulation for power, timing, and temperature.

Possible flow:

  • Read in topology for analog module
  • Prepare SPICE decks
  • Receive Power per component from SPICE
  • Provide temperature adjustment per component to SPICE

The process can be made iterative until convergence is reached.

Integration with physical verification tools (DRC)

Some advanced DRC rules use voltage and temperature as a parameters. InVar can feed its output into DRC tool. If supported by DRC tool, rule check could be done with individual temperature and voltage parameters per every object.