1. A method for optimizing a circuit design, the method comprising: receiving a circuit performance target value for the circuit design; simulating operation of a circuit corresponding to the circuit design, the simulating using one or more design points corresponding to at least a size of a particular circuit component in the circuit design; receiving a circuit performance result that includes information from the simulated operation of the circuit design using the one or more design points; determining a mean value of a distribution of the circuit performance result; and optimizing a difference between the mean value of the distribution of the circuit performance result and the circuit performance target value with respect to a number of standard deviations of the distribution of the circuit performance result, the optimizing including adjusting at least the size of the particular circuit component in the circuit design; wherein all steps are implemented using a processor unit.