The path report is the working document of timing closure. This topic reads one line by line: the header, the data path with its increments, the clock paths with latency, uncertainty and pessimism removal, and the required time. It ends with the misreadings that most often send people down the wrong fix. The report format shown is generic and illustrative; real tools differ in layout but not in content.
Lesson | After it you can... |
|---|---|
Name every part and recompute the slack. | |
Read latency, uncertainty and the pessimism credit. | |
Find what dominates the path and read a hold report. | |
Avoid the eight most common mistakes. |
The data arrival time and the data required time. Slack is required minus arrival for setup (and arrival minus required for hold).