Critical area computation - a new approach

Abstract

In this paper we present a new approach for computing the critical area for shorts in a circuit layout. The critical area calculation is the main computational problem in VLSI yield prediction. The method is based on the concept of Voronoi diagrams and computes the critical area for shorts (for all possible defect radii, assuming square defects) accurately in O(n log n) time, where n is the size of the input. The method is presented for rectilinear layouts but it is extendible to general layouts. As a byproduct we briefly sketch how to speed up the grid method of Wagner and Koren.