Lsi Corporation

International Business Machines Corporation

John Emery Nordman

Todd Jason Youngman

Gary Paul McClannahan

John Handley Shaffer

Scott Thomas Senst

Gary Scott Delp

Jonathan W Byrn

Todd Edwin Leonard

Albert Alfonse Slane

Philip Lynn Leichty

Kevin Gerard Plotz

Mark William Branstad

Michael A MInter

Donald Gabrielson

Daniel Dean Ortmann

During the design of semiconductor products which incorporates a user specification and an application set, the application set being a partially manufactured semiconductor platform and its resources, a template engine is disclosed which uses a simplified computer language having a character whereby data used in commands identified by the character need only be input once, either by a user or by files, and that data, after it has been verified to be correct, is automatically allocated to one or more templates used to generate shells for the specification of a final semiconductor product. Data must be correct and compatible with other data before it can be used within the template engine and the generated shells; indeed the template engine cooperates with a plurality of rules and directives to verify the correctness of the data. The template engine may generate one or more of the following shells: an RTL shell, a documentation shell, a timing analysis shell, a synthesis shell, a manufacturing test shell, and/or a floorplan shell.

Language and templates for use in the design of semiconductor products

A method to validate data used in a design of a semiconductor product currently in a partially fabricated state is disclosed. The partially fabricated state having a plurality of layers up to and including a first conductive layer. The method generally includes the steps of (A) adding a second conductive layer from a user specification to an application set, the application set having a plurality of resources that define the semiconductor product, (B) validating a new resource in the user specification against the resources in the application set, (C) adding the new resource to the application set upon passing the validating and (D) propagating the new resource throughout a description of the semiconductor product, the description being stored in a computer-readable medium.

Rules and directives for validating correct data used in the design of semiconductor products

A method, system, and a computer program product to provide correct and complete input into a shell generation tool that provides the infrastructure for design and development of an integrated circuit. Given a definition of a platform, in part a partially manufactured semiconductor product having some diffused and some configurable resources, a user can enter data that is correct and complete into the shell generation tool using several techniques. The tool itself can present data for the user to select that is complete and correct, i.e., the data, inter alia, has no syntactic or other errors of an HDL, satisfies the constraints and naming conventions required by the tool, a customer of the semiconductor product, and/or the entity designing the product, provides appropriate timing and voltage levels, and is otherwise compatible with other data in the generation tool. If a user inputs data into an entry field, the tool automatically validates the input data by invoking one or more algorithms to determine its correctness and completeness before entering the data for shell generation.

Assuring correct data entry to generate shells for a semiconductor platform

A method to validate data used in a design of a semiconductor product. The method includes (a) reading resources of an application set defining the semiconductor product in a partially fabricated state comprising fabrication layers up to and including a lowest conductive layer (b) reading a user specification that (i) is developed based upon the application set at the partially fabricated state and (ii) establishes at least one upper conductive layer added to the application set that completes the design of the semiconductor product, (c) allocating a new resource from the user specification to the design of the semiconductor product, said new resource having multiple parameters, (d) validating the allocation of the new resource against the resources of the application set and (e) propagating the allocation of the new resource and the parameters throughout a description of the semiconductor product.

A tool for facilitating automatic test pin assignment for a programmable platform device including a process for collecting information related to the programmable platform device, a process for automatically initializing a test pin assignment for the programmable platform device, a process configured to receive user specifications for IOs and a process for performing dynamic test pin reassignment in response to the user specifications.

System for performing automatic test pin assignment for a programmable device

A method and apparatus are provided for implementing communications in a communications network. The apparatus for implementing communications includes a system interface to the communications network. A scheduler schedules enqueued cells and enqueued frames to be transmitted. A segmenter segments frames and cells in into cells or frames applied to a media adaptation block for transmission in a selected one of multiple modes.

Communications adapter for implementing communications in a network and providing multiple modes of communications

Method, system and signal bearing medium for configuring an integrated circuit are provided. One embodiment provides a method for configuring an integrated circuit, comprising: providing a user interface for displaying one or more abstract data elements for user selection, wherein the one or more abstract data elements represent one or more controls associated with characteristics of the integrated circuit; receiving a user selection of an abstract data element; validating associated abstract rules for the user selected abstract data element; and validating product rules for the one or more product data elements associated with the user selected abstract data element, wherein the one or more product data elements represent one or more controllable features of the integrated circuit.

Reusable configuration tool

A method and Gigabit Ethernet communications adapter are provided for implementing communications in a communications network. A transmission queue is defined of data to be transmitted. A transmission rate is set for the transmission queue. Data to be transmitted are enqueued on the transmission queue. The transmission queue can be subdivided into multiple priority queues, for example, using time wheels, and a transmission rate is set for each transmission queue.

Communications methods and gigabit ethernet communications adapter providing quality of service and receiver connection speed differentiation

An apparatus and method for improving the communication capabilities of computer systems is disclosed. The most preferred embodiments of the present invention use a series of data buffers and data registers to process an incoming high speed data signal. By using the buffers and registers, the incoming signal can be reformatted and manipulated at a much lower frequency than the original transmission frequency. The deserializer of the present invention also samples a greater portion of the incoming data signal than usual to further increase reliability. These various features of the invention provide for a more stable and reliable communication link and will also provide a less expensive solution for serialization/deserialization. The present invention includes a serializer that receives parallel data input from a computer and serializes the data for transmission over a high-speed serial communication link. On the receiving end, the present invention provides a deserializer that can quickly and efficiently transform the serial data back into parallel form for use within the computer system on the receiving end. By utilizing two related clock signals, one clock signal being an integer multiple of the other, a self-synchronizing serializer/deserializer can be created. In addition, by increasing the size of the data sample on the receiving end, the comparisons necessary to retrieve a parallel signal from a serial transmission can occur at a much lower frequency than the frequency of the serial transmission. In the most preferred embodiment, the invention is provided as a integrated solution manufactured on a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) card, thereby allowing the present invention to be easy installed into existing computer systems.

Growing community of inventors

Rochester, MN, United States of America

John Emery Nordman