Dynamic Circuit Characterization and a Single Ring-Oscillator-Based Test Structure for Its Timing Parameter Extraction

Dynamic circuit is extensively-used where high speed is required such as critical path in digital and analog/mixed-signal circuits, yet it has not been successfully characterized and integrated into the digital design flows as its characterization is not straightforward due to its complex timing requirement. In this paper, we first propose a practical timing model for dynamic circuits which we use to characterize the dynamic circuit. Then, we apply the model to the static timing analysis (STA) using the constructed liberty file to verify its feasibility. We also propose a test structure to extract the required timing parameters with the measurement results for practical dynamic circuit characterization.