STATIC TIMING ANALYSIS OF GASP by Prasad

Acknowledgements I sincerely thank my advisor, Dr. Peter Beerel for inspiring me to take up one of the most significant academic challenges that I have taken in my life. He has been the best advisor a graduate student can wish for and without his support, guidance and patience; this work would not have been completed. I also thank his wife Janet and baby Kira for considering me as a part of their family and providing me with a warm and productive environment to work. I would like to thank my friends and colleagues from the USC Asynchronous CAD/VLSI group, support and invaluable suggestions. A special mention goes to Mallika, Pankaj and Amit for helping me with tool related problems and always entertaining my questions at the weirdest of hours. I would take this opportunity to show my respect and gratitude towards Dr. Ivan Sutherland of Sun Microsystems. He is one of the greatest engineers of this era and it has been an honor to have had the opportunity to work under him. I also thank Marly Roncken of Intel for her brilliant technical inputs and making the necessary circuits easily available. Ivan and Marly have been the pillars of this project and their confidence is me gave me the freedom and motivation to do better. I thank the VLSI research team of Sun Labs for giving me the opportunity of developing the static timing analysis flow for GasP as a summer 2008 intern. A special mention goes to my manager Jonathan Gainsley, my questions and giving me valuable feedback. They have been excellent teachers and have helped me build a strong technical understanding. guiding me through the various requirements of the EE department at USC. There are many friends who have helped and supported me in the last few years. First, I thank my great friend Rajesh Kotian for providing me with love, care and shelter during my initial days of struggle. Second, I would like to thank my roommates Murtaza for bearing my random hours of work and always helping me great technical discussions. Third, I thank my friends Mohit Thatte, Anirudh Shetye and Prasanjeet Das for being a constant source of support. Fourth, I thank all my friends in India for always being there with me when I needed them the most. Last but not the least, I wish to thank my parents Asha Joshi and Prakash Joshi …