Workload distribution in fault simulation

Simulation at the gate level is computationally very expensive. Parallel processing is one technique to reduce simulation time. Possessing knowledge of the distribution of computational activity in simulation can aid in parallelizing it efficiently. We present a new characterization of the distribution of the computational workload in fault simulation. An empirical analysis shows that the workload distribution is circuit specific, and is largely independent of the vector set being simulated. An inexpensive method to predict the workload distribution is also discussed.