Tau White Paper

Board-level circuits today routinely run at speeds of 100 MHz or more and are composed of dozens of complex interacting VLSI components. To design such circuits in a timely and correct manner it is necessary to pay close attention to circuit timing early in the design cycle. At fast clock speeds, managing component and interconnect propagation delay becomes a key aspect of circuit design. It is imperative that the critical paths on a circuit and the slack available for interconnect delay consumption be identified early, and drive subsequent stages in the design flow....