Early Dual Grid Voltage Integrity Verification

As part of power distribution network verification, one should check if the voltage fluctuations exceed some critical threshold. The traditional simulation-based solution to this problem is intractable due to the large number of possible circuit behaviors. This approach also requires full knowledge of the details of the underlying circuitry, not allowing one to verify the power distribution network early in the design flow. In this work, we consider the power and ground grids together (i.e. dual grid) and formulate the problem of computing the worst-case voltage fluctuations of the dual grid under the framework of current constraints. Then, we present a solution technique in which tight lower and upper bounds on worst-case voltage fluctuations are computed via linear programs. Experimental results indicate that the proposed technique results in errors in the range of a few mV . We also present extensions to single grid (i.e. only power grid) verification techniques.MAS