Evaluating the use of pre-simulation in VLSI circuit partitioning

One of the significant difficulties in partitioning logic circuits for distributed simulation is the lack of a priori knowledge concerning the evaluation frequency of individual circuit elements. A number of researchers have resorted to pre-simulation to estimate these evaluation frequencies. In this paper we empirically investigate the wisdom of relying on pre-simulation results, and evaluate the degree to which early evaluation frequencies predict later evaluation frequencies. The results show that, for simulations that use random input vectors, pre-simulation has clear merit in predicting circuit element evaluation frequency. This supports the use of pre-simulation as an input to circuit partitioning algorithms.