Patent · US Expired

Integrated circuit fabrication using state machine extraction from behavioral hardware description language

US5537580A · kind A · utility

169Cited by
7References
27Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateDec 21, 1994
Grant dateJul 16, 1996
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 21, 2014

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F30/30
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method for fabricating an integrated circuit includes the steps of: (a) describing the functionality of an integrated circuit in terms of a behavioral hardware description language, where the hardware description language describes behavior which can be extracted as a state machine; (b) extracting a register level state machine transition table of the state machine from the hardware description language; (c) generating a logic level state transition table representing the state machine from the register level state machine description; (d) creating a state machine structural netlist representing the state machine from the logic level state transition table; and (e) combining the state machine structural netlist with an independently synthesized structural netlist to create an integrated circuit structural netlist including the state machine to provide a basis for chip compilation, mask layout and integrated circuit fabrication. The method results in a synchronous state machine being extracted from an register-transfer (RT) level representation taken from a scheduled behavioral hardware description language description such as a Verilog or VHDL. Behavioral hardware description lan…

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