Hi Harold, There are any number of ways that one can do static timing analysis and there are a number of tools that one can perform this analysis with. I think that the biggest barrier to entry with most of these tools is cost. Going to a show like designcon will expose you to the number of vendors that produce these tools and what the price spectrum may be. The second element to this is what your tool flow is and how information can be passed forward and backward. By performing pre-layout timing analysis you can create a set of constraints that can be used to drive your router. This prelayout analysis can also set up your timing budget which can also help drive your placement and find errors early in the design process. Errors found after routing are costly from both a dollar cost and schedule perspective. These constraints can also be used to generate drcs so your timing errors can be easily found at the physical implementation. Often times timing analysis will be performed prior to placement to see if the flight times have a reasonable budget. The timing can then be performed after placement using the manhatten lengths of the routes to perform timing and finally after routing. When done properly the post route sim should be quick and relatively uneventful. I hope that this helps. Just my 0.02 best regards, Michael Greim -----Original Message----- From: polus@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:polus@xxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 9:39 AM To: si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [SI-LIST] How Do Others Do Timing Analysis Without Tool Like BLAST Greetings Everyone! How do the rest of you perform timing analysis. WE have XFX but not BLAST. Currently I do it in EXCELL with a home grown internal tool. This is cumbersome and time consuming. There has to be a better way, particularily for pre-layout design rather than having to wait for post layout data and using something like BLAST. Any suggestions? Harold Polus Lexmark Laser Printer Controller Development SI & EMC ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu ------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from si-list: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field or to administer your membership from a web page, go to: //www.freelists.org/webpage/si-list For help: si-list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'help' in the Subject field List archives are viewable at: //www.freelists.org/archives/si-list or at our remote archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/si-list/messages Old (prior to June 6, 2001) list archives are viewable at: http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu