Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

Other

University of California

Christoph Albrecht

Andreas Kuehlmann

Philip Chong

Ellen Sentovich

Roberto Passerone

Saurabh Kumar Tiwary

Radu Zlatanovici

Sascha Richter

Andrew B Kahng

David John Seibert

Ion Mandoiu

Alexander Z Zelikovsky

In one embodiment of the invention, a method for designing an integrated circuit is disclosed. The method includes automatically partitioning clock sinks of an integrated circuit design into a plurality of partitions; automatically synthesizing a clock tree from a master clock generator into the plurality of partitions to minimize local clock skew within each of the plurality of partitions; and automatically synthesizing clock de-skew circuitry into each of the plurality of partitions to control clock skew between neighboring partitions.

Methods for designing intergrated circuits with automatically synthesized clock distribution networks

A method is provided that includes: determining a minimum clock cycle that can be used to propagate a signal about the critical cycle in a circuit design; wherein the critical cycle is a cycle in the design that has a highest proportionality of delay to number of registers; determining for a circuit element in the circuit design, sequential slack associated with the circuit element; wherein the sequential slack represents a minimum delay from among respective maximum delays that can be added to respective structural cycles of which the circuit element is a constituent, based upon the determined limit upon clock cycle duration; using the sequential slack to ascertain sequential optimization based design flexibility throughout multiple stages of a design flow.

Optimizing integrated circuit design through use of sequential timing information

Reducing critical cycle delay in an integrated circuit design through use of sequential slack

Automatic synthesis of clock distribution networks

In one embodiment of the invention, a method of retiming a circuit is disclosed. The method includes computing an upper bound and a lower bound for a clock period of a clock signal to clock a circuit in response to a netlist of the circuit; selecting a potential clock period for the clock signal to clock registers of the circuit in response to the computed upper bound and the computed lower bound for the clock period; computing an upper bound and a lower bound of a retiming value for each node of the circuit to determine if a retiming of the circuit is achievable with the potential clock period; and computing the retiming value for each node of the circuit to minimize circuit area in response to the computed upper bound and the computed lower bound of the retiming value for each node.

Constraint based retiming of synchronous circuits

Optimizing integrated circuit design through balanced combinational slack plus sequential slack

Data path and placement optimization in an integrated circuit through use of sequential timing information

In optimizing a design of an integrated circuit, an iteration of a logic optimization process is performed that at least partially optimizes a circuit design such that there is slack remaining in one or more combinational logic paths in the circuit design following the iteration. A clock latency scheduling process is performed that respectively distributes the remaining slack of one or more respective combinational logic paths in the circuit design across respective registers in the circuit design. Another iteration of the logic optimization process is performed that uses at least a portion of the distributed slack to further optimize the circuit design.

Optimization of combinational logic synthesis through clock latency scheduling

A method and system for evaluating a floorplan and for defining a global buffered routing for an integrated circuit including constructing a graphical representation of the integrated circuit floorplan, including wire capacity and buffer capacity; formulating an integer linear program from said graphical representation; finding a solution to said integer linear program.

Floorplan evaluation, global routing, and buffer insertion for integrated circuits

Growing community of inventors

Berkeley, CA, United States of America

Christoph Albrecht