Many designers are familiar with setup and hold time definitions - however, few can identify correctly the launch and capture edges and the slack/violation between two flops during timing analysis. In this post, we will cover setup/hold times in a design with clear examples.

Setup time is defined as the minimum amount of time BEFORE the clock’s active edge by which the data must be stable for it to be latched correctly. Any violation in this minimum required time causes incorrect data to be captured and is known as setup violation.

Hold time is defined as the minimum amount of time AFTER the clock’s active edge during which the data must be stable. Any violation in this required time causes incorrect data to be latched and is known as hold violation.

The setup time in a design determines the maximum frequency at which the chip can run without any timing failures. Factors affecting the setup analysis are the clock period Tclk, Clock to Q propagation delay of the launch flop Tck->q, negative clock skew Tskew, required setup time of the capture flop Tfs and combinational logic delay Tcomb between the two flops being timed. The following condition must be satisfied.

Tfs <= Tclk – Tck->q – Tskew – Tcomb

Hold analysis depends on the Tck->q, combinational logic delay, the clock skew and the hold time requirement Tfh of the capture flop. It is independent of the frequency of the clock. The condition below must be satisfied.

Tck->q + Tskew + Tcomb >= Tfh

Consider the figure below depicting a flop to flop path in the same domain with some combinational logic between them. We will now calculate the setup and hold time slacks in the design based on the given timing parameters.

Setup and Hold time illustration - Full cycle transfer

For setup checks in single cycle paths, the clock edges that are relevant is shown in the Figure above. The data required time for the capture flop B to meet setup is

Data Required time = (Clock Period + Clock Insertion Delay + Clock Skew - Setup time of the flop) = 8 + 2 + 0.25 -0.1 = 10.15 ns

The data arrival time from the launch flop is

Data Arrival time = (Clock Insertion Delay + CK->Q Delay of the launch flop + Combinational logic Delay) = 2 + 0.1 + 5 = 7.1 ns.

Setup slack is

Setup Margin = Data Required Time - Data Arrival Time = 10.15 - 7.10 = 3.05 ns

Similarly for hold checks assuming the hold time requirement of the flop B is 100 ps, the data expected time is

Data expected time = (Clock Insertion Delay + Clock skew + Hold time requirement of flop) = 2 + 0.25 +0.1 = 2.35 ns.

So the hold time slack is

Hold Margin = Data Arrival time - Data expected time = 7.10 - 2.35 = 4.85 ns

Consider the case where the clock to flop B is inverted (or that the flop is negative edge trigerred). In this particular case, the relevant edges for setup/hold are as shown in the figure below.

Setup and Hold time illustration - Half cycle transfer

In this scenario, the setup margin considering all the other parameters to be the same is

Data Required time = (half_clock_period + clock insertion delay + Ck->Q delay of flop A - Setup time required for flop B) = 4 + 2 + 0.25 -0.1 = 6.15 ns

Since the Data Arrival time remains the same, there is a setup violation of

Setup violation = 6.15 ns - 7.10 ns = -1.05 ns

There is no hold violation since the data arrival time remains the time but the data expected time is any time after (Clock skew + Hold time requirement of flop B)

Data expected time = 0.25 + 0.1 = 0.35 ns

Hold Margin = 7.10 - 0.35 = 6.75 ns