Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for designing an integrated circuit

US5666288A · kind A · utility

144Cited by
14References
40Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 21, 1995
Grant dateSep 9, 1997
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 21, 2015

Classification

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

Abstract

A method and apparatus for designing and manufacturing integrated circuits (ICs) involves providing an initial library of IC cells (106) and a behavioral circuit model (100) in order to create a gate schematic netlist (102). The gate schematic netlist (102) is optimized by changing individual transistor sizes, power rail sizes, cell pitch, and the like in a step (103). Once the optimization has occurred, the initial library can no longer be used to place and route the IC. Therefore, a hybrid logic cell library is created from the gate schematic netlist (102) via a step (105). This hybrid library and the above optimizations provides a placed and routed IC via a step (126) in a short design cycle while optimizing performance of the IC.

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