US Patent 7900174 Method and system for characterizing an integrated circuit design

A method and a system for characterizing an integrated circuit (IC) design are disclosed. The method includes receiving a description of leaf cells used in the IC design. The IC design is described in a high-level language by using the description of the leaf cells. The description of the IC design includes specifying placement of the leaf cells and specifying connectivity between them. Further, the method includes extracting a circuit netlist file based on the physical layout of the IC design. The instructions are defined in the high-level language to perform simulations on the extracted circuit netlist file. These simulations are performed on the circuit netlist file to determine the values of the design parameters. Furthermore, the method includes providing the values of the design parameters of the IC design in a pre-defined output format based on the simulations.