Exploitation of periodicity in logic simulation of synchronous circuits

Abstract

An overwhelming majority of logic designers use synchronous logic design techniques to manage the complexity of their designs and rely on logic simulation techniques for design verification. Yet, logic simulators do not take advantage of the higher abstraction level provided by synchronous logic design techniques to improve their performance. A general technique is presented which takes advantage of the high degree of periodicity common in synchronous logic designs. It is shown that a performance improvement of at least 200% occurs when these techniques are applied within the COSMOS. simulation system to simulate large digital systems.<>