Lsi Logic Corporation

Lsi Corporation

Matthew Scott Wingren

Jonathan W Byrn

Gary Scott Delp

George Wayne Nation

Michael K Eneboe

Gary Paul McClannahan

Paul Gary Reuland

Robert Neal Carlton Broberg, Iii

Thomas Sandoval

James Arnold Jensen

A set of tools is provided herein that produces useful, proven, and correct integrated semiconductor chips. Having as input either a customer's requirements for a chip, or a design specification for a partially manufactured semiconductor chip, the tools generate the RTL for control plane interconnect; memory composition, test, and manufacture; embedded logic analysis, trace interconnection, and utilization of spare resources on the chip; I/O qualification, JTAG, boundary scan, and SSO analysis; testable clock generation, control, and distribution; interconnection of all of the shared logic in a testable manner from a transistor fabric and/or configurable blocks in the slice. The input customer requirements are first conditioned by RTL analysis tools to quickly implement its logic. The slice definition and the RTL shell provides the correct logic for a set of logic interfaces for the design specification to connect. The tools share a common database so that logical interactions do not require multiple entries. The designs are qualified, tested, and verified by other tools. The tools further optimize the placement and timing of the blocks on the chip with respect to each other and with respect to placement on a board. The suite may be run as batch processes or can be driven interactively through a common graphical user interface. The tools also have an iterative mode and a global mode. In the iterative mode, one or more of the selected tools can generate the blocks or modify a design incrementally and then look at the consequences of the addition, or change. In the global mode, the semiconductor product is designed all at once in a batch process as above and then optimized altogether. This suite of generation tools generates design views including a qualified netlist for a foundry to manufacture.

Suite of tools to design integrated circuits

A electronic design automation tool, apparatus, method, and program product by which design requirements for an intended semiconductor product and the resource definitions of a semiconductor platform are input. From the design requirements and the resource definitions, parameters specific to clocking are derived, e.g., clock property information, clock domain crossing information, and clock relationship specification. The tool and method embodied therein validates the clocking parameters of the design requirements with the resource definitions and invokes errors if the parameters are not realizable. Once the desired clocking parameters are consistent with the actual clocking parameters, correct physical optimization constraints and timing constraints are generated for the clocks. An iterative process can achieve correct and minimal clocking constraints.

Automatic generation of correct minimal clocking constraints for a semiconductor product

Simplified process to design integrated circuits

A standardized silicon platform chip has a substrate surface with an array of unconnected transistors that surround islands. The islands have circuit elements that are interconnectable within each island to form a plurality of varied circuit functions for each of the islands. The varied circuit functions include both application functions and clock functions. Interconnect layers are deposited over the substrate surface to interconnect the circuit elements within each island to complete the varied circuit functions. The varied circuit functions include varied levels of integration including at least gates, flip-flops, clock trees, and oscillators. The varied circuit functions are custom connectable to the array of unconnected transistors to form standard clock resources for the standardized silicon platform chip.

Custom clock interconnects on a standardized silicon platform

A tool for designing an integrated circuit and semiconductor product that generates correct RTL for I/O buffer structures in consideration of the requirements of diffused configurable I/O blocks and/or I/O hardmacs of the product. Given either a slice description of a partially manufactured semiconductor product, a designer can generate the I/O resources of an application set. Then given an application set having a transistor fabric, and the diffused configurable I/O blocks and/or the I/O hardmacs, and a plurality of accompanying shells, the I/O generation tool herein automatically reads a database having the slice description and generates the I/O buffer structures from the transistor fabric. The I/O generation tool further conditions and integrates input from either or both customer having her/his own logic and requesting a specific semiconductor product or from IP cores with their preestablished logic. The I/O generation tool creates correct RTL from the transistor fabric for correct placement, timing, testing, and function of I/O buffer amplifiers for the semiconductor product, either incrementally or globally. Once I/O buffer structures are created, they are qualified by a plurality of shells including a verification shell, a static timing analysis shell, a manufacturing test shell, and a RTL analysis shell.

Placement of configurable input/output buffer structures during design of integrated circuits

Growing community of inventors

Rochester, MN, United States of America

Matthew Scott Wingren