CURRANT: a current prediction software tool using a switch-level simulator

A description is given of CURRANT, a current analysis tool which generates current waveforms for the current flowing in the metal interconnections of VLSI circuits. CURRANT interrogates a switch-level mode simulator (i.e. RNL simulator for digital MOS circuits) and extracts information on resistance, capacitance, and node states for each transistor in the circuit. It creates a linked list data structure which represents the circuit and holds the extracted information. Transistor descriptions and current waveforms are generated by analyzing the RC equivalent circuit. The waveforms generated are suitable for predicting electromigration effects and include the peak and the area under the curve following the peak. The descriptions and waveforms are written to an output file for each time step in the simulation. Results show that the waveforms generated are within 10% of those predicted by SPICE.<>