Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Akira Motohara

Toshiyuki Yokoyama

Makoto Fujiwara

Sadami Takeoka

Mitsuyasu Ohta

Toshinori Hosokawa

Miwaka Takahashi

Takahiro Ichinomiya

Katsuya Fujimura

Kentaro Shiomi

Osamu Ogawa

Masahiro Ohashi

In an LSI, a decoding section decodes an ID signal received externally and outputs the decoded signal. A fuse circuit writes the value represented by the decoded signal therein when an operation setting signal is active, and holds the written value when the operation setting signal is inactive. An ID RAM stores the value held in the fuse circuit as the ID. This enables installation of IDs of various values in LSIs only by changing the value of the ID signal.

ID installable LSI, secret key installation method, LSI test method, and LSI development method

An encryption process is employed in the LSI design so as to improve confidentiality of the circuit design data over conventional examples. In the encryption process, confidential circuit design data is encrypted to produce encrypted design data and a cipher key. The encrypted design data is provided to the user who conducts a design/verification process. The key is also provided as required. In the design/verification process, the encrypted design data is subjected to various processes without disclosing the contents of the original circuit. In a decoding process, the encrypted design data subjected to the design/verification process is decoded to produce original circuit design data.

LSI design method and verification method

The present invention provides a semiconductor device, in which a plurality of chip IPs are mounted onto a common semiconductor circuit board, an evaluation method for the same, and a function setting method for the same. Various IP groups can be mounted as chip IPs onto a silicon circuit board. The silicon circuit board includes a silicon substrate, a wiring layer and pads. IPs (chip IPs) are mounted onto the pads by lamination. Means for selecting, switching and setting the functions of the IPs are provided, making the semiconductor device suitable for small-variety mass-production.

Semiconductor device, function setting method thereof, and evaluation method thereof

A method of designing a semiconductor integrated circuit includes steps of selecting a pair of scan registers to be connected as a scan chain and calculating a beeline distance on hardware from each output terminal of the scan register at the front stage to a scan data input terminal of the scan register at the rear stage. The method further includes steps of selecting the output terminal of the scan register at the front stage having a minimum beeline distance on the basis of the above calculation; determining to connect the selected output terminal with the scan data input terminal of the scan register at the rear stage; and forming the scan chain by connecting each pair of scan registers by using the output terminal determined in the previous step.

Method of designing semiconductor integrated circuit utilizing a scan test function

Information about an exclusive operation among a plurality of blocks and interconnection information about a sharable resource within each of these blocks are defined. Based on the sharable resource information and the inter-block exclusive operation information, a resource sharable among the blocks is extracted. Module specifications, in which information about interfaces, power dissipation, operation models and top-level hierarchy interconnection is stored, exclusive operation information describing an exclusive operation rule among the blocks, and prioritized function information used for preventing respective functions from being enabled at the same time are input to an generator, which is an automatic generating tool. In this manner, a power and clock management module for use in power save management, a wrapper bank select module storing interconnection information, a shared resource module storing information about a sharable resource and an optimized top-level hierarchy module storing interconnection information about an optimized top-level hierarchy are generated. Downsizing and power saving are realized by resource sharing and power management.

Method for designing integrated circuit device

The method for designing an integrated circuit device of the present invention includes the steps of: obtaining the number of operations by a functional simulation; determining a specification model based on the number of operations; determining an behavioral model corresponding to the specification model based on the number of operations per cycle required; determining a RTL model corresponding to the behavioral model based on the number of operations per cycle required; and obtaining design data corresponding to the RTL model for implementing the function.

Method of designing integrated circuit device using common parameter at different design levels, and database thereof

Architecture design (AD), architecture floorplanning (AF), and transaction analysis (TA) are performed before transaction-analysis-based floorplanning (TF). Then, area estimation (CE) is performed on functional parts and connections before area-based floorplanning (CF) and area optimization (CO) are performed, and whether or not the area specifications area satisfied or not is validated (CR). Besides, power consumption estimation (PE) is performed to check whether or not the power consumption specifications are satisfied (PR). In the case of taking a parallelization approach to realize lower power consumption, parallelization design (PD) is performed. After the power consumption specifications are satisfied, power supply wiring/floorplanning is performed.

Method for designing integrated circuit based on the transaction analyzing model

In an integrated circuit device, when a net having many toggle counts exists in a circuit including blocks each having function modules, the circuit is changed to an equivalent circuit where the net is included inside a block. In the circuit, when the toggle counts of a function module in a block are especially many, a plurality of parallel blocks is provided in place of the block. When a plurality of pins of a block can be exchanged without changing the output value although the internal toggle counts of the block changes, the input pins are exchanged so that the internal toggle counts are less. Objects to be connected via a net having many toggle counts are given priority to be placed closer to each other in the floor plan.

Method for designing integrated circuit device and database for design of integrated circuit device

Method for improving the efficiency of designing a system-on-chip integrated circuit device

Method of designing semiconductor integrated circuit

Three blocks cascaded to one another in an LSI, namely, an input module, a macro module and an output module, are independently tested. A first test circuit is formed with a first multiplexer interposed between the macro module and the output module, and a second multiplexer and a first control register interposed between the input module and the macro module. A second test circuit is similarly formed with third and fourth multiplexers and a second control register. A test input signal of a plurality of bits is supplied to the first multiplexer, and a latched signal of the first control register is supplied to the third multiplexer, thereby allowing a latched signal of the second control register to be output as a test output signal for observation. Thus, testing techniques requiring a small additional circuit and a small number of additional wires for the test can be provided.

Semiconductor integrated circuit with a testable block

This invention is intended for a semiconductor integrated circuit with scan logical blocks wherein scan flip-flops are used for interblock signal communication. A testing sequence is generated to detect a fault in a target scan logical block. First, a block testing sequence, which is a testing sequence to the scan logical block as a single circuit, is generated. If signal inversion occurs in a scan chain that runs through the scan logical block, data that is inputted to or outputted from the scan logical block via such a scan chain is inverted. Patterns equal in number to the semiconductor integrated circuit's structure are placed in front of and behind a shift-in pattern and a shift-out pattern in the block testing sequence, to convert the block testing sequence into a testing sequence for the entire semiconductor integrated circuit. Upon completion of all the testing sequence generation with respect to the scan logical blocks, the generated testing sequences are merged.

Method for generating test sequences for detecting faults in target scan

A method for generating a test sequence for a fault in a sequential circuit to provide high fault coverage. In one embodiment (FIG. 1), a circuit state, which a system fails to justify, is stored as an illegal state in a step 107. In a step 103, a target fault is selected. In a step 104, the system performs its fault propagation processing to generate a test sequence and propagate the target fault from a fault location to any external output pin in such a manner that the circuit state does not coincide with the illegal state set stored in the step 107, and judges the success or failure of the sequence generation. In a step 105, the system performs its state initialization processing to generate a test sequence and transfer the state of the circuit from its initial state to a state when the fault was sensitized in such a manner that the circuit state does not coincide with the illegal state set stored in the step 107, and judges the success or failure of the sequence generation. Since the circuit state when the system fails to justify the state is stored as the illegal state so that a circuit state at the time of generating a subsequent test sequence is prevented from coinciding with the illegal state set, the possibility of the successful test sequence generation can be increased and thus the test sequence generation system can achieve high fault coverage.

Test sequence generation method

In an apparatus for generating a test pattern for a sequential logic circuit including a plurality of storage elements each storage element storing a logical value of one bit wherein logical values of bits of the plurality of storage elements being represented by a state, first external input values are generated so that a transition process is performed from a second state of the plurality of storage elements to a first state thereof, and second external input values are generated so hat a transition process is performed from a third state of the plurality of storage elements to the first state thereof. Thereafter, third external input values are generated so that a transition process is performed from a fourth state of the plurality of storage elements to the first state thereof. After setting the fourth state as the first state, name data of storage elements corresponding to bits of different states between the second and third states are stored in a storage unit. After setting the third state as the first state, there is increased a degree of requesting a scan operation for each of the storage elements, name data of which have been stored in the storage unit. Then, storage elements to be scanned are selected for generating an improved test pattern based on the degree of requesting the scan operation.

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Hyogo, Japan

Akira Motohara