COST: Circuit Optimization SysTem in ASIC library development environment

Increased focus on high performance circuit design and shorter development cycle time for ASIC libraries, are driving the need for automatic circuit optimizers in the ASIC library development environment. High performance input/output circuits are the key differentiator cells in the ASIC library market. Automating the design process of these circuits using an optimizer, not only ensures high performance cells but also provides faster design cycle. COST has been used to optimize cells in the development of many ASIC libraries. In this paper we have described the essential components of the COST optimization system and presented a method for optimizing I/O circuits. We have compared the performance of the two cost function heuristics implemented in our optimization system on ASIC input/output circuits.