Methods and systems for functionally describing a digital hardware design and for converting a functional specification of same into a netlist
US6192504A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jan 27, 1998 |
| Grant date | Feb 20, 2001 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jan 27, 2018 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F30/33
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Disclosed is a hardware design development tool, where in a first step the data flow (30) of the desired hardware design is specified (10, 40) and structured into functions. Then the required control logic (31, 32) is introduced in those functions in order to get a description of the functional behavior of the underlying hardware. Various interconnections or relationships are provided between data flow and control logic, for instance via calls (33) between them. According to the proposed methodological steps, the design is specified (10, 40) by functions depending on variables, wherein the functions contain data flow and control flow information. The functional description is parsed (43) in order to distinguish data flow and control flow information. In particular, at least one local table (45) each entry of which containing the control flow information, and a global table (46) each entry of which containing the data flow information and references to the local table(s), are provided. The development tool allows an automatic generation of a netlist from a high-level functional hardware description. Therefore a slow simulation on the low-level netlist stage is obsolete and the relat…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.