S2c Inc.

Xilinx, Inc.

Other

Mon-Ren Chene

Stephen M Trimberger

Thomas B Huang

Jon A Frankle

A plurality of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA), high performance transceivers, and memory devices provide a verification module for timing and state debugging of electronic circuit designs. Signal value compression circuits and gigabit transceivers embedded in each FPGA increase the fanout of each FPGA. Ethernet communication ports enable remote software debugging of processor instructions.

Verification module apparatus for debugging software and timing of an embedded processor design that exceeds the capacity of a single FPGA

A plurality of FPGAs and off-chip storage devices provide a verification module for functionally debugging electronic circuit designs. Signal value compression circuits embedded in each FPGA conserve the limited number of pins available on each FPGA. Transmitting addresses to signal values previously stored in off-chip storage further reduce the bottlenecks in analyzing logic functionality distributed across multiple FPGAs.

Verification module apparatus to serve as a prototype for functionally debugging an electronic design that exceeds the capacity of a single FPGA

A apparatus and a system and method to operate the above provide a reconfigurable platform for emulating and debugging a user design which exceeds the capacity of a single field programmable logic device (FPGA). The method and system facilitates design and emulation of a system-on-a-chip type user design. The netlist of a user design may be included with logic value tunneling circuits in an emulation using a platform including a number of field programmable devices. A verification module apparatus provides a hyper prototype for debugging an electronic design that exceeds the capacity of a single FPGA. A verification module provides access to a plurality of attached FPGAs by means of Logic Value Tunneling Transmitters and Receivers which deliver many signals over few pins.

Logic verification module apparatus to serve as a hyper prototype for debugging an electronic design that exceeds the capacity of a single FPGA

A method and a system provide a reconfigurable platform for designing and emulating a user design. The method and system facilitates design and emulation of a system-on-a-chip type user design. The netlist of a user design may be included with netlists from customized or optimized third party circuits in an emulation using a platform including a number of field programmable devices. Various customized circuits for specific development activities, such as debugging, performance analysis, and simulator linkage may be configured to interact with the user design.

Scalable reconfigurable prototyping system and method

The present invention provides suggested delay limits for use by layout tools which cause a programmable integrated circuit device to implement a logic design. The suggested delay limits can be used by such tools as an initial placement algorithm, a placement improvement algorithm, and a routing algorithm for evaluating and guiding potential layouts. The suggested delay limits take into account characteristics of the programmable device being used by estimating lower bound delays for each connection in a logic design, and take into account any previously achieved delays or achievable delays for each connection in calculating the suggested limits. Results of routing benchmark designs using the novel suggested limits show improved timing performance for all benchmark cases tested.

Timing driven method for laying out a user's circuit onto a programmable

A modified partitioning method for placement of a circuit design into a programmable integrated circuit device having a specific distribution of physical resources along a horizontal or vertical line in the device. The circuit design includes a plurality of circuit elements, for example three-state buffers which feed a common bus, or registers which receive a common clock signal. Such elements should or must be placed along a single horizontal or vertical line. One method includes the step of weighting connecting lines (nets) which join circuit elements to be placed along a common line with different weights for the horizontal and vertical directions. Alternatively, elements to be placed along the line are marked to be kept in line during partitioning. A min-cut algorithm then tends to or is required to avoid separating particular elements from a common line. The group containing the circuit elements with the line requirement is then partitioned such that the area and location of the group corresponds to the horizontal or vertical line.

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Cupertino, CA, United States of America

Mon-Ren Chene