Patent · US Active

Concurrent buffering and layer assignment in integrated circuit layout

US7895557B2 · kind B2 · utility

10Cited by
5References
2Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 10, 2008
Grant dateFeb 22, 2011
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 6, 2029

Classification

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

Abstract

A method and system for concurrent buffering and layer assignment in integrated current layout. Buffers are inserted and metal interconnects or “wires” are sized for every net, which consists of one driver and one or more receivers, such that timing skew constraints can be met. Long nets are promoted to a higher level if the slew violation can be fixed only by a promotion of the net or if the “slack” gain available by this promotion is equal to or greater than a predesignated layer of promotion threshold. In response to determining these layer assignments, the method and system then systematically demotes nets that are not critical and which do not impact the circuit and electrical constraints in order to minimize the use of high layer wire resources.

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