Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080263493 | Method and Apparatus for Tie Net Routing - A method of performing tie net routing within an integrated circuit chip is disclosed without using wiring. Due to repeated use of designs in modern chip, there are often unused portions of the design that need to be connected permanently to a local logical1 or logical 0. These connections, known as tie nets, are not timing critical signals that, when poorly implemented can get in the way of functional signals in an integrated circuit. The current method is to connect the pin to the nearest power connections of the correct polarity. This requires some amount of wiring resources that may be needed for other functions or pin access. Accordingly, the present invention avoids this situation by avoiding wiring. | 10-23-2008 |
20090064081 | Process for Managing Complex Pre-Wired Net Segments in a VLSI Design - A method for pre-wiring through multiple levels of metal using flues includes steps of: receiving information comprising flue geometries and flue properties; producing multiple routing patterns of a design for the flues; identifying macro instance terminals to be pre-wired in the design; selecting at least one of the routing patterns for the macro instance terminals in the design to avoid blockage; and instantiating the design such that the flues can be manipulated as vias. | 03-05-2009 |
20090100397 | Buffer Placement with Respect to Data Flow Direction and Placement Area Geometry in Hierarchical VLS Designs - A method for identifying and modifying, in a VLSI hierarchical chip design, parent buffer placements which lead to wiring track inefficiencies with respect to data flow and the parent placement area geometry. Parent placement area is reviewed and a subset is categorized and distinguished as either horizontal slots or vertical slots. Buffer to buffer data flow is reviewed for cases where data flow direction is either Strongly horizontal or strongly vertical. Situations where buffer to buffer data flow is oriented in the same direction as the parent placement slots in which the buffers reside are reported, Additionally, an attempt is made to find a valid placement location for the buffers excluding parent placement areas oriented in the same direction as the data flow. | 04-16-2009 |
20090210840 | Optimization Method of Integrated Circuit Design for Reduction of Global Clock Load and Balancing Clock Skew - A design methodology and algorithms for the computer aided design of integrated circuits having clock distribution networks. The clustering of latch distribution tree components is combined with repositioning of such components within clock sector areas. The movement and clustering of components is such that the timing constraints are preserved. The methods is described in terms of reducing and balancing the load inside each clock sector, although the techniques may also be applied to balancing load between clock sectors. | 08-20-2009 |
20090210843 | Method of Automating Creation of a Clock Control Distribution Network in an Integrated Circuit Floorplan - The process of laying out a floorplan for a clock control distribution network in an integrated chip design is simplified and the efficiency of a staging network created is improved. Rather than manually create the staging network in HDL or as a network description table while looking at a picture of the chip floorplan in a Cadence Viewer, an automated method which runs in the Cadence environment uses an algorithmic approach to the problem of maximizing the utilization of staging latches, eliminating unnecessary power and area usage. Efficiency is maximized by updating the Physical Layout directly with the staging solution arrived at by the algorithm. | 08-20-2009 |
20090210845 | COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT, APPARATUS, AND METHOD FOR INSERTING COMPONENTS IN A HIERARCHICAL CHIP DESIGN - Components are inserted into a cell-based current chin design with multiple levels of nested hierarchy. A selection of components having various silicon densities to insert into the current chip design is received. The components are inserted into the current chip design such that the components do not touch or overlap existing circuits or silicon shapes in the current chip design. The components are inserted such that components having highest silicon densities are placed further away from the existing circuits or silicon shapes than components having lower silicon densities. | 08-20-2009 |
20090210850 | Method for Simplifying Tie Net Modeling for Router Performance - A method for preprocessing tie net routing data organizes the data into a plurality of tie nets each based on an optimal connection path between a pin or set of pins and the power grid. The router then routs the data embodying the thusly-simplified plurality of tie nets. Once the routing is complete, post processor takes the routed design and returns it to it's original net list state while keeping the routing solution. | 08-20-2009 |
20090217115 | Method for Optimizing Scan Chains in an Integrated Circuit that has Multiple Levels of Hierarchy - A method for optimizing scan chains in an integrated circuit that has multiple levels of hierarchy addresses unlimited chains and stumps and separately all other chains and stumps. Unlimited chains and stumps are optimized by dividing an area encompassed by the chains and by a start point and an end point of the stump into a grid comprised of a plurality of grid boxes, and determining a grid box to grid box connectivity route to access all of the grid boxes between the start point and the end point by means of a computer running a routing algorithm. All other chains and stumps are optimized randomly assigning to a stump a chain that can be physically reached by that stump and adding an additional chain to that stump based on the number of latches in the additional chain, its physical location, and the number of latches already assigned. | 08-27-2009 |