| Patent application number | Description | Published |
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| 20080229259 | Design flow for shrinking circuits having non-shrinkable IP layout - A method for processing an integrated circuit is provided. The method includes providing a first integrated circuit having a first scale, wherein the first integrated circuit comprises a shrinkable circuit comprising a first intellectual property (IP) layout, and a non-shrinkable circuit comprising a second IP layout; and generating a second integrated circuit having a second scale smaller than the first scale. The step of generating the second integrated circuit includes shrinking the shrinkable integrated circuit to the second scale. The method further includes merging the second IP layout with the non-shrinkable circuit to generate a final integrated circuit. | 09-18-2008 |
| 20080270813 | Mother/daughter switch design with self power-up control - System and method for providing power to integrated circuitry with good power-on responsive time and reduced power-on transient glitches. A preferred embodiment comprises a daughter switch coupled to a circuit block, a first control circuit coupled to the daughter circuit, a second control circuit coupled to the first control circuit, and a mother circuit coupled to the circuit block and to the second control circuit. After the daughter switch is turned on by a control signal, the mother switch is not turned on until the daughter switch has discharged (charged) the voltage potential across power rails of the mother circuit to a point where glitches are minimized. The second control circuit turns on the mother circuit when the reduced voltage potential is reached, with a signal produced by the first control circuit reflects the voltage potential. Furthermore, a bypass circuit can be used to reduce leakage current. | 10-30-2008 |
| 20090278251 | Pad Structure for 3D Integrated Circuit - This invention discloses an I/O pad structure in an integrated circuit (IC) which comprises a first vertical region in the IC including a top metal layer and one or more semiconductor devices formed thereunder, the top metal layer in the first vertical region serving as a first pad, the semiconductor devices being electrically connected to the first pad, and a second vertical region in the IC next to the first vertical region including the top metal layer and one or more through-silicon-vias (TSVs) formed thereunder, the top metal layer in the second vertical region serving as a second pad, and no semiconductor devices being formed beneath the second pad, the TSVs being electrically connected to the second pad, wherein the first and the second pad are electrically connected through at least one metal layer. | 11-12-2009 |
| 20100058267 | PLACE-AND-ROUTE LAYOUT METHOD WITH SAME FOOTPRINT CELLS - This invention discloses a method for automatically generating an integrated circuit (IC) layout, the method comprises determining a first cell height, creating a plurality of standard cells all having the first cell height, and generating the IC layout from the plurality of standard cells by placing and routing thereof. | 03-04-2010 |
| 20100174933 | System and Method for Reducing Processor Power Consumption - A system and method for reducing active power in processors is disclosed. A method embodiment comprises the steps of determining when a particular logic block is inactive, determining the powered state of the particular logic block, isolating the particular logic block from a main processor core, and powering off the particular logic block. When the system needs the particular logic block, the method further comprises reactivating the block. A system embodiment comprises software and a processor coupled to a clock control module, an isolation control module and a header/footer module, operable to isolate a particular logic block and power off a particular logic block, thereby reducing power. Another embodiment comprises a logic module coupled to a clock by a clock gating module, an isolation module for isolating the logic module, a header/footer module for disabling power to the logic module, and a power and clock gating control module for controlling the clock gating module and the header/footer module. | 07-08-2010 |
| 20100242008 | METHOD FOR DUMMY METAL AND DUMMY VIA INSERTION - A method for dummy metal and dummy via insertion is provided. In one embodiment, dummy metals are inserted using a place and route tool, where the place and route tool has timing-awareness. Then, dummy vias arrays are inserted inside an overlap area of dummy metals using a design-rule-checking utility. Fine-grained dummy vias arrays are inserted in available space far away from main patterns. The dummy-patterns resulting from the inserted dummy vias are compressed using the design-rule-checking utility to reduce the size of a graphic data system file generated from the integrated circuit design. The dummy vias can be inserted with relaxed via spacing rules. The dummy metals are inserted with a constant line-end spacing between them for better process control and the maximum length of the dummy metal can be limited for smaller coupling effects. The dummy vias can have various sizes and a square or rectangular shape. | 09-23-2010 |
| 20100253382 | System and Method for Observing Threshold Voltage Variations - A system and method for observing threshold voltage variations are provided. A ring oscillator circuit comprises a plurality of inverters arranged in a sequential loop, a plurality of test circuits having devices under test, each coupled between a respective one of the inverters and a power supply. Each test circuit has a bypass field effect transistor (FET) having a first channel coupled between the power supply and a respective one of the inverters responsive to an individual enable signal, and a FET device under test having a second channel arranged in parallel to the first channel. A method is described for determining the threshold voltage of the device under test by disabling, for one of the inverters in the ring oscillator, the first FET device such that the device under test is coupled between the power supply and the respective inverter and affects the operating frequency of the ring oscillator. | 10-07-2010 |
| 20110035715 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ON-CHIP-VARIATION ANALYSIS - Apparatus is provided for performing timing analysis on a circuit. A first storage device portion stores a state dependent stage weight for each of a rising time arc and a falling time arc of each of a plurality of cells in a cell library. An adder is provided for calculating a sum of the state dependent stage weights for each of the cells that are included in a circuit path. A second storage device portion stores a table containing on chip variation (OCV) derating factors. The table is indexed by values of the sum. A total path delay is calculated for the circuit path, based on the OCV derating factor corresponding to the sum of the state dependent stage weights for the cells in the circuit path. | 02-10-2011 |
| 20110072405 | Chip-Level ECO Shrink - In a method of forming an integrated circuit, a layout of a chip representation including a first intellectual property (IP) is provided. Cut lines that overlap, and extend out from, edges of the first IP, are generated. The cut lines divide the chip representation into a plurality of circuit regions. The plurality of circuit regions are shifted outward with relative to a position of the first IP to generate a space. The first IP is blown out into the space to generate a blown IP. A direct shrink is then performed. | 03-24-2011 |
| 20110083115 | ROBUST METHOD FOR INTEGRATION OF BUMP CELLS IN SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE DESIGN - A system and method for computer-aided design of semiconductor integrated circuit devices provides for having dummy vias beneath UBM of bump cells to prevent delamination at the bump cell sites during bonding. The dummy vias are inserted into the design and bump cell placement occurs during the floorplanning stage and prior to placement and routing of the active integrated circuit components. In this manner, a sufficiently high via density is achieved and design information on the bump cells including the dummy vias is provided to a computer-aided design, CAD, system along with program instructions for carrying out the indicated sequence of design operations. | 04-07-2011 |
