Method and apparatus for characterizing timing behavior of datapaths for integrated circuit design and fabrication
US5726902A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jun 7, 1995 |
| Grant date | Mar 10, 1998 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jun 7, 2015 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F30/30
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A method and apparatus for characterizing the timing behavior of datapath in integrated circuit design and fabrication. A set of circuit specifications for an integrated circuit are developed and described in a hardware description language (HDL) description. A datapath library including datapath cells and a gate library including primitive gate cells are provided, and a netlist is synthesized from the HDL description. The netlist is composed of datapath cells from the datapath library and primitive gate cells from the gate library. If a datapath cell instance in the netlist does not meet the timing constraints imposed by a user for the circuit, an alternative datapath cell instance can be substituted for that cell instance in a resynthesis and optimization step. An integrated circuit is preferably fabricated as specified by the resynthesized netlist. The netlist is preferably resynthesized multiple times in an iterative loop to optimize the netlist according to the constraints. The timing information for alternative cells used in the resynthesis of the netlist can be retrieved from a timing database in one embodiment. Timing information for datapath cells is stored in the timing d…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.