Machine Learning-Based Pre-Routing Timing Prediction with Reduced Pessimism

Optimizations at placement stage need to be guided by timing estimation prior to routing. To handle timing uncertainty due to the lack of routing information, people tend to make very pessimistic predictions such that performance specification can be ensured in the worst case. Such pessimism causes over-design that wastes chip resources or design effort. In this work, a machine learning-based pre-routing timing prediction approach is introduced. Experimental results show that it can reach accuracy near post-routing sign-off analysis. Compared to a commercial pre-routing timing estimation tool, it reduces false positive rate by about 2/3 in reporting timing violations.