A Python Framework for System-on-Chip Power Integrity Simulation

An innovative power integrity simulation methodology is proposed in this work, using open-source simulators as to simulate the power drop across the power delivery network (PDN) of a system-on-chip. As an open-source simulator, the NgSPICE was used along with the PySPICE module, which enables accurate and large-scale integration power integrity analysis. The case study circuit vehicle, a D-latch 9-stages ring oscillator, was implemented in a 16 nm process and used as to validate the proposed Python framework. In the proposed methodology, the circuit vehicle netlist and the PDN were described in. csv file format as to be easily manipulated using Python programming. Three different power delivery network topologies were addressed and power grid parasitic-aware simulations were performed. Each power delivery network scenario was examined individually for several values of resistance, capacitance and inductance of the power grid network.