A method is disclosed for estimating inductive coupling noise of a signal
on a transmission line in a circuit design stored in a computer memory.
The method determines the capacitive coupling noise on the signal, adds
inductive coupling noise, and compares the total to a specified maximum
amount of noise. The inductive coupling is a percentage of a supply
voltage, which percentage varies depending upon the transition rate of the
signal, the resistance of the line, and the gate capacitance of a load on
the line. The inductive coupling varies based on the circuit design and
may be stored in a table having inductive coupling values for multiple
design conditions. The table is created using a field solver to determine
line characteristics and a circuit simulator to simulate inductive
coupling noise. For each set of initial conditions, a worst-case inductive
coupling value is recorded in the table.