Statistical timing is seen as the next EDA technology for timing and power sign-off.  Research into this field has seen significant activity starting about five years ago.  Recently, interest appears to have fallen off.  Also, while a lot of focus has been put on research, few applications in industry have been reported so far.

Therefore, a group driven by Infineon Technologies and including various universities and research institutes as well as an EDA provider has tackled key challenges to enable statistical design in industry, in a project called “Sigma65”.  Sigma65 strives to provide key foundations to allow a change from traditional deterministic design methods to future design methods driven by statistical considerations.

After an overview of the industrial perspective of the current situation it will be shown how the interaction between industrial perspective, research institutions and EDA provider enables solutions that are applicable in the near future.  The TU Munich and the Fraunhofer Institute will present fundamental and applied research on statistical timing and power analysis. MunEDA, EDA provider, will present recent research advances on fast yield estimation.

Sigma65 is partly funded by the German ministry of education and research.