Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for optimizing electronic circuits

US5459673A · kind A · utility

88Cited by
9References
12Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 11, 1994
Grant dateOct 17, 1995
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 11, 2014

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F30/327
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and apparatus for sizing components of an electronic circuit by replacing standard cells representative of the components in the circuit with other standard cells from a standard cell library in order to improve the performance so that the circuit meets certain predetermined user-specified criteria. A computer program implementation ("the sizing system") of this method is described. This implementation receives command line options from the user, builds an internal representation of the external standard cell library, builds a database describing the connectivity of the circuit, computes the capacitance seen at each node in the circuit, and queries the user for additional command options. One such option is for the sizing system to size the circuit, via a heuristic algorithm, by replacing standard cells in the circuit with others from a standard cell library in order to improve the circuit's performance.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.