Fast PVT: A Rapid, Accurate, and Reliable Method for Design and

Verification of Circuits Under Process-Voltage-Temperature Conditions

Solido Design Automation, Inc.
Dec. 8, 2011

consuming. Designers may cope by guessing

ABSTRACT
Integrated Circuit designs are subject to process,
voltage, and temperature (PVT) variations, often
modeled as a set of PVT corners. In modern
designs, there can be hundreds or thousands of
PVT corners. This paper presents the Fast PVT
method, which quickly extracts the most relevant
PVT corners, for use in an iterative design loop.
Furthermore, Fast PVT reliably verifies designs,
on average 10x faster than testing all corners.
This paper then demonstrates Fast PVT on a
suite of benchmark circuits, revealing some of
the key traits that make Fast PVT effective.
1 INTRODUCTION
Process, voltage, and temperature (PVT)
variations are often modeled as a set of PVT
corners. Traditionally, only a handful of corners
have been necessary: with FF and SS process
(P) corners, plus extreme values for voltage (V)
and temperature (T), all combinations would
mean 2^3=8 possible corners.
With modern processes, many more process
corners are often needed to properly bracket
process variation across different device types.
Furthermore, transistors are smaller,
performance margins are smaller, voltages are
lower, and there may be multiple supply
voltages. To bracket these variations, more
variables with more values per variable are
needed.
This leads to more corners. Before, 3 variables
having 2 values each gave 2^3=8 corners. Now,
even a basic analysis with 4 device types (e.g.
nmos, pmos, resistor, capacitor) and 4 other
variables (e.g. temperature, voltage, bias, load)
with 3 values each results in 3^8=6,561 corners.
The problem is that simulating each corner can
take several seconds, minutes, or even hours for
longer analyses. To simulate all possible corners
could take hours or even days, which is too time-
which corners cause the worst-case performance,
but that is risky: a wrong guess could mean that
the design hasn’t accounted for the true worst-
case, which means failure in testing followed by
a re-spin, or worse, failure in the field.
What is required is a rapid, reliable, and user-
friendly tool to quickly identify the worst-case
PVT corners when there are hundreds,
thousands, or even tens of thousands of possible
corners. We define these attributes as follows:
Rapid: Runs fast enough to facilitate both
iterative design and verification within
production timelines.
Reliable: Finds the worst-case corners with high
confidence (versus ones that are 20% or 50% off
from the true worst-case).
User-friendly: Must be easy to use by design
engineers.
Solido’s Fast PVT application, part of the
Variation Designer platform, is designed to meet
the above requirements. This paper first presents
an overview of existing PVT corner approaches.
It then presents Fast PVT, including an overview
of the technical approach and sample results on
real production designs.
2 REVIEW OF PVT CORNER
APPROACHES
We aim to find the worst-case PVT corner(s)
from hundreds or thousands of candidate corners.
To be applicable to production design, the
approach needs to be rapid and reliable.
Engineers and researchers have investigated a
number of approaches to do this; this section
summarizes some of the popular approaches and
highlights challenges with these methods.
Full Factorial: The idea here is simply to
simulate all the possible corners. As discussed,

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 Fast PVT: A Rapid, Accurate, and Reliable Method for Design and Verification of Circuits Under Process-
Voltage-Temperature Conditions
this can be very time-consuming, taking hours or
days. On the positive side, it always returns the
true worst-case corner(s).
Designer Best Guess: Here, the designer makes
guesses (based on experience) about what the
worst-case corners may be, e.g. 1-2 worst-case
corners per output. The advantage of this
approach is speed. The disadvantage is lack of
reliability: a wrong guess can mean failure in
testing or in the field. Reliability is strongly
dependent on the designer’s skill level,
familiarity with the design, familiarity with the
process, and if the designer has adequate time to
make a qualified guess. In practice, it is difficult
to consistently have all of these qualities, which
makes the “best guess” approach inherently
risky.
Sensitivity Analysis (Orthogonal Sampling,
Linear Model): In this approach, each variable
is perturbed one-at-a-time, and the circuit
simulated, to construct an overall linear response
surface model (RSM). The worst-case PVT
corners are chosen as the ones that the linear
model predicts worst-case output values for.
This is fast, as it only requires n+1 simulations if
there are n variables (the +1 is for nominal).
However, reliability is poor: it can easily miss
the worst-case corners because it assumes a
linear response (no interactions or other
nonlinearities) from PVT variables to output; this
is often not the case.
Quadratic Model (traditional DOE): In this
approach, the first step is to draw n* (n-1)/2
samples in PVT space using fractional-factorial
Design-of-Experiments (DOE) [1], then simulate
them. The next step constructs a quadratic
response surface model (RSM) from this
input/output data. Finally, the worst-case PVT
corners are the ones that the quadratic model
predicts as worst-case output values. While this
approach takes a few more simulations than the
linear approach, it is still relatively fast because
the number of input PVT variables n is relatively
small. However, reliability is still not great
because circuits may have mappings from PVT
variables to output that are more nonlinear than
simple quadratic. Also, these methods typically
require considerable expertise and effort from
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the designer, and therefore fail the easy-to-use
criterion.
3 FAST PVT METHOD
3.1 Overview of Fast PVT Approach
Fast PVT uses an advanced modeling approach
called Gaussian Process Models (GPMs) [2].
GPMs are arbitrarily nonlinear, making no
assumptions about the mapping from PVT
variables to outputs. Fast PVT is adaptive, to
make maximum use of the simulations so far.
As we will see, these core characteristics enable
Fast PVT to be rapid, reliable, and user-friendly.
The Fast PVT application supports two distinct
tasks, corner extraction and verification:
Corner extraction is for finding corners
that the designer can subsequently design
against. Corner extraction runs an initial DOE,
predicts all values using advanced modeling,
then simulates the predicted worst-case predicted
corners for each output. There is no adaptive
component.
Verification keeps running where corner
extraction would have stopped. It loops, to
adaptively test candidate worst-case corners
while updating the model and improving the
predictions of worst-case. It stops when it is
confident it has found the worst-case.
Verification takes more simulations than corner
extraction, but is more accurate in finding the
worst-case corners.
Figure 1 shows the Fast PVT algorithm. Both
Fast PVT corner extraction and verification start
by drawing a set of initial samples, X (i.e.
corners), then simulating them, y. A model
mapping X→ y is constructed.
After that, corner extraction simply returns the
predicted worst-case points. Verification
proceeds by iteratively choosing new samples
via advanced modeling, and then simulating the
new samples. It repeats the modeling /
simulating loop until the model is 95% confident
that worse output values are no longer possible.
When choosing new samples, it accounts for
both the model’s prediction of the worst-case, as
well as the model’s uncertainty in order to
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 Fast PVT: A Rapid, Accurate, and Reliable Method for Design and Verification of Circuits Under Process-
Voltage-Temperature Conditions
account for model “blind spots”. Error!
Reference source not found.
X= initial sampling DOE
y = simulate(X)
Construct model
mapping X→y
Choose xnew: optimize
on model, incorporating
model uncertainty
ynew = Simulate(xnew).
Update X, y
Stop if converged
Figure 1: Fast PVT Algorithm
Fast PVT is rapid because it simulates just a
small fraction of all possible PVT corners; and it
is reliable because it does not make assumptions
about the mapping from PVT variables to
outputs, and explicitly tracks modeling error.
Later in this paper, results on >100 benchmark
problems will further validate the technique’s
reliability.
For detailed explanation of the steps in Figure 1,
and theoretical details, we refer the reader
Appendix A. For further details on the GPM
modeling approach, we refer the reader to
Appendix B.
3.2 Fast PVT Design Flow
Table 1 outlines a flow showing how Fast PVT
is used for the tasks of corner extraction and
verification, including a rapid-iteration design
loop. The general flow is to extract corners,
design against them, verify; and repeat as
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needed. Solido tools support this flow.
Table 1: Fast PVT Design / Verification Flow
1. Run Fast PVT with “corner extraction” stop
criterion.
2. If no failures were found, go to step 5.
3. Set failing cases as design corners.
4. Fix design according to the corners:
4.1. Identify opportunities to improve the
design using Solido DesignSense.
4.2. Test the design against the corners using
Solido Run Extracted Corners.
4.3. Iterate step 4 until all corners are passing.
5. Run Fast PVT with “verification” stop criterion.
6. If no failures were found, stop (success).
Otherwise, go to step 3.
3.3 Fast PVT for >1 Output, >1 Core
The algorithm just described was for a single
output, assuming a serial process.
It is straightforward to extend the Fast PVT
algorithm to handle >1 output, as follows. All
outputs use the same initial samples; at each
iteration, each output gets to choose a new
sample; and model building for a given output
always uses all the samples taken for all outputs
(of that testbench).
It is also straightforward to parallelize the Fast
PVT algorithm: initial sampling sends off all
simulation requests at once; and the iterative
loop is modified slightly in order to keep
available simulation nodes busy.
3.4 Tolerance Values
In many real-world scenarios, the designer may
not care if Fast PVT finds the true worst-case
value; instead, the designer may be just
interested in knowing that the worst-case value
found by Fast PVT is within a tolerance of the
true worst-case, such as ±1dB of gain. Fast PVT
can be configured for this, so that it will stop
once it has determined that it is within e.g. 1dB
of the worst-case. Of course, this will reduce the
number of simulations.
This capability is also helpful in the case where
the simulator does not converge perfectly, but
instead has a small noise level. If there is noise
near the worst-case, then Fast PVT having
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 Fast PVT: A Rapid, Accurate, and Reliable Method for Design and Verification of Circuits Under Process-
Voltage-Temperature Conditions
tolerance=0 may end up having to test most
candidate corners; but with a tolerance it can
declare convergence much earlier.
3.5 Fast PVT “Corner Extraction”
Limitations
Recall that the “corner extraction” task of Fast
PVT simply runs the initial DOE, builds a
model, predicts worst-case corners, and stops. It
is not adaptive. Therefore its main limitation is
that it is not as accurate as Fast PVT in
“verification” in terms of finding the actual
worst-case corners (for the benefit of speed and
simplicity).
3.6 Fast PVT “Verification” Limitations
Stopping criteria and model accuracy govern the
speed and reliability of Fast PVT verification.
The most conservative stopping criteria would
lead to all simulations being run, at no benefit
compared to fast factorial, and one that is too
aggressive will stop before the worst-case is
found. Fast PVT verification strikes a balance,
by stopping as soon as the model is confident it
has found the worst-case. The limitation is that
the model may be overly optimistic, because it
has missed a dramatically different region. To
avoid hitting this limitation, section 3.7 provides
guidelines on measurements, which directly
affect model quality.
Model construction becomes too slow for >1000
simulations taken. In practice, if Fast PVT has
not converged by 1000 simulations, it probably
will not, so it will simply simulating the
remaining corners. Appendix B has details.
Fast PVT performs best when there are fewer
input PVT variables. For >20 variables,
modeling becomes increasingly difficult and
starts to require >1000 simulations. For these
reasons, we do not recommend using Fast PVT
with >20 input variables. Appendix B has
details.
Fast PVT speedup compared to Full Factorial is
dependent on number of candidate corners: the
more candidate corners, the higher the speedup.
This also means that if there is a small number of
candidate corners (e.g. 50 or less), then the
speedup will usually not be significant (e.g. <2x,
and perhaps even 1x).
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In summary, Fast PVT’s limitations are
noteworthy, but do not preclude its use with
production designs.
3.7 Guidelines on Measurements
Fast PVT's speed and accuracy depend on how
accurate a model it can construct, in mapping
from PVT input variables to outputs. The more
accurate the model, the faster the convergence.
In designing measurements / choosing targets,
the user should be aware of these guidelines:
Can be binary, and more generally, can have
discontinuities. These do typically take more
simulations to model accurately, however.
Can contain measurement failures, as long
as those measurement failures correspond to
extreme values of one of the outputs being
targeted.
Should not be constant. If you know that an
output is constant, you should not specify for
Fast PVT to aim for this output, as it will waste
simulation effort trying to find worse values, and
have difficulty converging. Alternatively, set a
tolerance so that convergence is easier.
Cannot contain primarily simulator noise as
the key cause of output variation. If this is an
issue, it usually means there is a defect in the
measurement. If needed, a partial workaround is
to set a nonzero tolerance.
4 FAST PVT VERIFICATION:
BENCHMARK RESULTS
4.1 Experimental Setup
This section shows Fast PVT verification
benchmark results on a suite of problems: 13
circuits with a total of 108 outputs, based on
industrial circuit designs and PVT settings. The
circuits include a shift register, two-stage bucket
charge pump, two-stage opamp, sense amp,
second-order active filter, three-stage mux,
switched-capacitor amplifier, active bias
generator, buffer chain, and SRAM bitcell. The
number of candidate PVT corners ranged from
120 to 2025. All circuits had reasonable device
sizings. The device models were from modern
industrial 65nm to 28nm processes.
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 Fast PVT: A Rapid, Accurate, and Reliable Method for Design and Verification of Circuits Under Process-
Voltage-Temperature Conditions
The benchmarking methodology is as follows.
For each of the 13 circuit problems:
We simulated all candidate PVT corners,
and recorded the worst-case value seen at each
output. These form the “golden” results.
We ran Fast PVT “verification” on the
circuit (each circuit had ≥1 target outputs) and
recorded the worst-case values that it found, and
how many simulations it took.
4.2 Experimental Results
Figure 2 shows the distribution of speedups for
Fast PVT verification. Each point in each plot is
the result of a single run of Fast PVT. Speedup
is the number of full-factorial PVT corners
(simulations), divided by the number of PVT
corners (simulations) that Fast PVT
“verification” needs to find the worst case and
stop.
Figure 2: Verification speedup for each circuit
Across the 13 runs, Fast PVT found the true
worst-case outputs 100% of the time. The
average speedup was 8.4x, and the maximum
speedup was 27.0x. For problems with >200
corners the average speedup was 12.7x.
In general, Fast PVT verification speedups are
consistently excellent when there are hundreds of
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corners or more; for fewer corners, the speedup
can vary more greatly.
A case of 1.0x speedup simply means that Fast
PVT did not have enough confidence in its
models to stop sooner than running all possible
corners.
Fast PVT speedup can be significantly higher if
tolerances are nonzero or if “corner extraction”
mode is used. (At the cost of some accuracy, of
course.)
5 FAST PVT: DISCUSSION
This paper presented algorithms for Fast PVT
corner extraction and verification, and verified
them through benchmarking on a suite of test
problems. We now examine Fast PVT in terms
of set of qualities required for a PVT technology
outlined in the introduction.
Rapid: Fundamentally, Fast PVT is able to be
fast because it learns about the structure of the
PVT→output mapping on the fly, and takes
advantage of that knowledge when choosing
simulations. As the benchmarks demonstrated,
in real-world (merge-output) scenarios Fast PVT
verification has speedups averaging 8.4x; and for
problems with >200 corners the average speedup
is 12.7x.
Reliable: Fast PVT is reliable because it uses
SPICE in the loop, uses arbitrarily nonlinear
modeling technology, and takes measures to fill
“blind spots” in the model. In benchmark results,
Fast PVT finds all the worst-case corners in
100% of the real-world (merge-output)
problems.
User-friendly: Fast PVT is implemented as a
high-quality application for the Solido Variation
Designer platform. It requires under one minute
to set up, and automatically post-processes all
data at runtime to present key information.
Corners found using Fast PVT can be saved and
designed to using other Variation Designer
applications.
In summary, to our knowledge, Fast PVT is the
only method for verifying PVT designs that is
simultaneously rapid and reliable. Its availability
as a high-quality product makes this effective
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 Fast PVT: A Rapid, Accurate, and Reliable Method for Design and Verification of Circuits Under Process-
Voltage-Temperature Conditions
technique easy to adopt and apply in an
industrial design environment.
6 CONCLUSION
In modern semiconductor processes, the need to
properly bracket variation has caused the number
of possible PVT corners to balloon. Rather than
a handful of corners, designers must test against
hundreds or even thousands of possible corners,
making PVT-based design and verification
exceedingly time-consuming.
This paper presented the Fast PVT application,
verified on benchmark results. Fast PVT enables
a rapid PVT design flow, via fast extraction of
worst-case PVT corners and fast verification. It
reduces overall design time and improves
reliability over conventional methods. This in
turn promotes the reliable development of more
competitive and more profitable products.
6.1 About Solido Variation Designer
Solido Variation Designer is a comprehensive set
of tools for variation-aware design. It allows
users to handle PVT, Monte Carlo, High-Sigma
Monte Carlo and layout-related problem types,
all following a unified corner-based design
methodology. For each problem type, Variation
Designer offers easy-to-use tools to quickly
verify the design, extract corners, and design
against those corners.
Appendix A: Details of Fast PVT
Verification Algorithm
Figure 3 illustrates the Fast PVT verification
algorithm. We now give a more detailed
description of this algorithm, with reference to
the figure.
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(1) X= initial sampling DOE
y = simulate(X)
(2) Construct model
mapping X→y
(3) Choose xnew: optimize
on model, incorporating
model uncertainty
(4) ynew = Simulate(xnew).
Update X, y
(5) Stop if converged
Figure 3: Fast PVT “Verification” Algorithm
We do so in two parts: first, by showing how we
recast the problem as a global optimization
problem; then how this problem can be quickly
and reliably approached with an advanced
model-building optimization technique.
We can cast the aim of finding worst-case
corners as a global optimization problem.
Consider x as a point in PVT space, i.e. a PVT
corner. Therefore x has a value for the model set
(or for each device type if separate per-device
models are used), Vdd, Rload, Cload, temperature T,
etc. We are given the discrete set of NC possible
PVT corners Xall = {x1, x2, …, xNC}, and a
SPICE-simulated output response to each corner
f(x). We aim to find x*, the “optimal” PVT
corner which gives the minimum f(x) (or
maximum f(x), depending on the output).
Collecting this together in an optimization
formulation, we get:
x* = argmin(f(x))
subject to x in Xall
Now, given the aims of speed and reliability, the
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 Fast PVT: A Rapid, Accurate, and Reliable Method for Design and Verification of Circuits Under Process-
Voltage-Temperature Conditions

challenge is to solve the global optimization corresponding output points y where the exact
problem with as few evaluations of f(x) as value of f(x) is known. Second, note the dark
possible (minimal number of simulations), yet line passing through the dots; this is the
reliably find the x* returning the global minimum predicted output values of the GPM for all
(true worst-case corner). possible input values. Whereas most regressors
do not guarantee to pass through the training
Fast PVT approaches this optimization problem
data, GPMs do. Third, note the 95% confidence
with an advanced model-building optimization
intervals (shaded region), having zero width at
approach that explicitly leverages modeling
training points and bulging as they get farther
error. We now detail the steps in the approach,
away from training points.
as shown inError! Reference source not
found..
(Step 1) Draw initial samples: Fast PVT
generates a set of initial samples X=Xinit in PVT
space using Design of Experiments (DOE) [1].
Specifically: the full set of PVT corners is
bounded by a hypercube; DOE selects a fraction
of the corners of the hypercube in a structured
fashion.
Simulate initial samples. This is simply SPICE
running on the initial samples: y = yinit = f(Xinit).
(Step 2) Construct model mapping X→y. Here,
Fast PVT constructs a regressor (an RSM)
mapping the PVT input variables to the SPICE- Figure 4: Example of Gaussian Process Model
simulated output value. The choice of regressor (GPM) in modeling x * sin(x)1.
is crucial: recall that a linear or quadratic model
makes unreasonably strong assumptions about
To recap, GPMs meet our criteria for Fast PVT
the nature of the mapping. We do not want to
modeling. For further details on GPMs, we refer
make any such assumptions – the model should
the reader to Appendix B.
be able to handle arbitrary nonlinear mappings.
Furthermore, the regressor must not only predict (Step 3) Choose new sample xnew: Once the
an output value for unseen input PVT points, it model is constructed, we use it to choose the
must be able to report its confidence in that next PVT corner xnew from the remaining
prediction. Confidence should approach 100% candidate corners Xleft=Xall\X. One approach
(0% error) at points that have previously been might be to simply choose the x that gives
simulated, and increase with distance from minimum predicted output value g(x):
simulated points.
xnew = argmin(g(x)) subject to x in Xleft
An approach that fits these criteria is Gaussian
However, this is problematic: while such an
Process Models (GPMs, a.k.a. kriging) [3].
approach optimizes f(x) in regions near worst-
GPMs exploit the relative distances among
case values that it has seen, there may be other
training points, and the distance from the input
regions with few samples that cause very
point to training points, while predicting output
different behavior than predictions. These are
values and the uncertainty of the predictions.
model “blind spots”, and if such a region
Figure 4Error! Reference source not found. contained the true worst-case value then this
shows an example of a GPM modeling the simple approach would fail.
function f(x) = x * sin(x), demonstrating how it
meets the target regressor properties. First, note 1
From http://scikit-learn.sourceforge.net/modules/gaussian_process.html
the dots; these are the training input points X and

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 Fast PVT: A Rapid, Accurate, and Reliable Method for Design and Verification of Circuits Under Process-
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GPMs, however, are aware of their blind spots,

because they can report their uncertainty. So, we
can choose xnew by including uncertainty s2(x):
xnew = argmin(h(g(x), s2(x))) s.t. x in Xleft
Where h(x) combines both g(x) and s2(x) in
some fashion. There are many options for h(x),
but a robust one is “least-constrained bounds”
(LCB) [5], which returns the xnew that returns the
minimum value for the lower-bound of the
confidence interval. Mathematically, LCB is
simply a weighted sum of g(x) and s2(x).
(Step 4) Simulate new sample; update. This is
simply SPICE running on the new sample: ynew =
f(xnew). We update all the training data with the Figure 5: Example of Fast PVT Convergence
latest point: X = X U xnew, and y = y U ynew.
(Step 5) Stop if converged. Here, Fast PVT The dashed line in Error! Reference source not
stops once it is confident that it has found the found. is the minimum simulated value so far;
true worst-case. Specifically, it stops if it has we see that immediately after the initial samples,
determined that there is very low probability of the first xnew finds a significantly lower simulated
finding any output values that are worse than the output value f(xnew). Over the course of the next
ones it has seen. For additional robustness, Fast several samples, Fast PVT finds even lower
PVT does a final check: it simulates at its biggest simulated values. Then, the minimum value
blind spots (highest uncertainty x points), and if curve flattens, and does not decrease further.
that does not change the worst-case seen, then it Simultaneously, from sample number 20 to 40,
stops. we see that the predicted lower bound hovers
around an output value of 30, but then after that,
Illustrative Example. Figure 5 shows an
the lower bound increases, creating an ever-
example Fast PVT Verification convergence
larger gap from the minimum simulated value.
curve, of output value versus sample number
This gap grows because Xleft has run out of
(simulation number). The first 20 samples are
corners that are close to worst-case, so it has to
initial samples Xinit and yinit. After that, each
use the next-best corners. As this gap grows,
subsequent sample xnew is chosen with adaptive
confidence that the worst-case is found increases
modeling. The predicted lower bound shown is
further. In fact, as soon as the 95% lower bound
the minimum of all 95%-confidence predicted
is above the minimum value so far, at sample
lower bounds across all unsimulated PVT
number ≈38, it means that the model is 95%
corners (Xleft). The PVT corner with this
confident that the worst-case is found, and the
minimum value is chosen as the next sample
algorithm can stop. (We showed continued
xnew. That new sample is simulated.
convergence after 38 samples to illuminate the
algorithm’s behavior.)
In this particular example, there were 220
candidate corners; since the algorithm would
have stopped at 38 samples, this indicates a
speedup of 5.2x.

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 Fast PVT: A Rapid, Accurate, and Reliable Method for Design and Verification of Circuits Under Process-
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Appendix B: Gaussian Process Models
Most regression approaches take the functional
form:
g(x) = ∑iNB wi * gi(x) + ε
Where g(x) is an approximation of the true
function f(x). There are NB basis functions; each
basis function gi(x) has weight wi. Error is ε.
Because gi(x) can be an arbitrary nonlinear
function, this model formulation covers linear
models, polynomials, splines, neural networks,
support vector machines, and more; and the
overall class of models is called generalized
linear models (GLMs). Model-fitting reduces to
finding the wi and gi(x) that optimize criteria
such as minimizing mean-squared error on the
training data, and possibly regularization terms.
These models assume that error ε is normally
distributed, with mean zero, with no error
correlation between training points.
In this formulation, the error distribution remains
constant throughout input variable space; it does
not reduce to zero as one approaches the points
that have already been simulated. This does not
make sense for SPICE-simulated data: the model
should have 100% confidence (zero error) at
previously simulated points, and error should
increase as one draws away from the simulated
points. Restating this, the model confidence
should change depending on the input point. We
can in fact create a functional form that properly
reflects this:
g(x) = ∑iNB wi * gi(x) + ε(x)
Note how the error ε is now a function of the
input point x. Now the question is how to
choose wi, gi(x), and ε(x) given our training data
X and y. A regressor approach that fits our
criteria, i.e. uses ε(x) and handles arbitrary
nonlinear mappings, is Gaussian Process Models
(GPMs, a.k.a. kriging). GPMs originated in the
geostatistics literature [2] but have recently
become more popular in the global optimization
literature [3] and then the machine learning
literature [4]. GPMs have such a powerful
approach to modeling ε(x) that they can replace
the first term of g(x) with a constant μ, giving the
form:
g(x) = μ + ε(x)
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In GPMs, ε(x) is normally-distributed with mean
zero, and variance a special matrix R. R is a
function of the N training input points X, where
“correlation” for input points xi and xj is Rij =
corr(xi, xj) = exp(-d(xi, xj)), and d is a weighted
distance measure d(xi, xj) = ∑h=1..n θh |xi,h - xj,h|ph.
This makes intuitive sense: as two points xi and
xj get closer together, their distance d goes to
zero, and therefore their correlation Rij goes to
one. Distance measure d is parameterized by n-
dimensional vectors θ and p, which characterize
the relative importance and smoothness of of
input variables. θ and p are learned via
maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) on the
training data.
From the general form g(x) = μ + ε(x) which
characterizes the distribution, GLMs predict
values for unseen x with:
g(x) = μ + rTR-1(y-1μ)
where the second term adjusts the prediction
away from the mean based on how the input
point x correlates with the N training input points
X. Specifically, r = r(x) = {corr(x,x1), …,
corr(x, xN)}. Once again, this formula follows
intuition: as x gets closer to a training point xi,
the influence of that training point xi, and its
corresponding output value yi, will get
progressively higher.
Recall we want a regressor to not just predict an
output value g(x), but also to report the
uncertainty in its predicted output value. In
GLMs, this is an estimate of variance s2:
s2(x) = σ2 * (1 – rTR-1r + (1-1TR-1r)2/(1TR-11))
In the above formulae, μ and σ2 are estimated via
analytical equations that depend on X and y. For
further details, we refer the reader to [3][4].
Model construction time. In GPMs,
construction time increases linearly with the
number of parameters, and as a square of the
number of training samples. In practical terms,
this is not an issue for 5 or 10 input PVT
variables with up to ≈500 corners sampled so far,
or for 20 input PVT variables and ≈150 samples;
but it does start to become noticeable if the
number of input variables or number of samples
starts to get beyond that.
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111 North Market Street, Suite 300
San Jose, CA 95113
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 Fast PVT: A Rapid, Accurate, and Reliable Method for Design and Verification of Circuits Under Process-
Voltage-Temperature Conditions

So that model construction does not become a

bottleneck, the Fast PVT algorithm behaves as
follows:
Once 180 simulations have been reached, it
only builds models every 5 simulations, rather
than after every new simulation. The build
interval increases with the number of simulations
(= max(5, 0.04 * number of simulations)).
If Fast PVT has not converged by 1000
simulations, it “cuts loose” and simply simulates
the rest of the full-factorial corners.
Time taken to running the model on candidate
corners is less of an issue. However, to
maximize speed, Fast PVT caches model
predictions on candidate corners, eliminating
repeat simulation until a new model is built.

References
[1] D.C. Montgomery, Design and Analysis of
Experiments, 6th Edition, Wiley, 2004.
[2] N. Cressie, “Geostatistics,” The American
Statistician, Vol. 43, 1989, pp. 192-202.
[3] D.R. Jones, M. Schonlau, and W.J. Welch,
“Efficient Global Optimization of Expensive
Black-Box Functions,” Journal of Global
Optimization, Vol. 13, 1998, pp. 455-592.
[4] C.E. Rasmussen and C.K.I. Williams, Gaussian
Processes for Machine Learning, MIT Press,
2006.
[5] M.J. Sasena, Flexibility and Efficiency
Enhancements for Constrained Global
Optimization with Kriging Approximations, PhD
thesis, University of Michigan, 2002.

Solido Design Automation, Inc.

111 North Market Street, Suite 300
San Jose, CA 95113
info@solidodesign.com +1 408 332 5811
http://www.solidodesign.com
Solido Design Automation Inc. Proprietary and Confidential.
Do not distribute. NDA required.