RTL CDC Is No Longer Enough — How Gate-Level CDC Is Now Essential to First Pass Success

Clock-domain crossing (CDC) verification is a critical step in the design verification cycle. However, CDC verification is not only necessary on RTL; at 28nm nodes and below it is also essential on gate-level designs due to the possibility of the introduction of CDC errors during the synthesis phase that can lead to silicon failure. In this article we review the root cause of these challenges and introduce an automated approach to overcome these difficulties.