CRITICAL PATH MONITOR HAVING SELECTABLE OPERATING MODES AND SINGLE EDGE DETECTION

摘要

A critical path monitor having selectable data output modes provides additional information about critical path delay variation. A pulse is propagated through a synthesized path representing a critical path in a functional logic circuit and a synthesized path delay is measured by a monitoring circuit that detects the arrival of an edge of the pulse at the output of the synthesized delay. The measured delay is provided as a real-time output and a processed result of the measured delay is processed according to a data output mode selected from multiple selectable output modes, thereby providing different information describing the real-time data about critical path delay, such as a range of edge positions corresponding to a variation of the critical path delay.