International Business Machines Corporation

Stephen J Barnfield

Ali S El-Zein

Viresh Paruthi

Wolfgang Roesner

Stephen Gerard Shuma

Benedikt Geukes

Derek E Williams

Stephen Victor Kosonocky

Gavin Balfour Meil

Daniel Ray Knebel

Alvan Wing Ng

Subhrajit Bhattacharya

Robert J Shadowen

Klaus-Dieter Schubert

Reinaldo A Bergamaschi

Birgit Schubert

Pradip K Jha

Rudra Mukherjee

John D Weaver

Kilaus-Dieter Schubert

Maya Safieddine

Based on a directive in a control file, a processor pre-routes, within a hierarchical integrated circuit design, a signal through one or more levels of design hierarchy between a signal source at a higher level of the design hierarchy and an entity instance at a lower level of the design hierarchy. The processor processes entity instances in the design hierarchy in a bottom-up manner to insert technology-specific structures into the hierarchical integrated circuit design. During the processing, the processor inserts into a particular entity instance of the design hierarchy a technology-specific structure and connects the technology-specific structure to the signal pre-routed to the particular entity instance by the pre-routing.

Signal pre-routing in an integrated circuit design

A specification for a modular circuit design includes a mapping from global clock domains to global voltage domains. A processor assigns, to a first instance of a clocked primitive component, a global voltage domain based on which global clock domain clocks the first instance, automatically adds, to the modular circuit design, first power supply rails to power the first instance, and connects the first power supply rails from the first instance to a first power supply for a first global voltage domain. The processor assigns, to a second instance of the clocked primitive component, a second global voltage domain based on which global clock domain clocks the second instance, automatically adds second power supply rails to power the second instance, and connects the second power supply rails to a second power supply for a second global voltage domain. The processor may perform further processing on the updated modular circuit design.

Automating addition of power supply rails, fences, and level translators to a modular circuit design

A processor receives, as input, a first hardware description language (HDL) file defining an entity of a modular circuit design. The first HDL file instantiates, by a storage element declaration in a hardware description language, a storage element within the entity. The first HDL file omits a port map for the storage element. Based on the first HDL file, the processor automatically fully elaborates a port map for the storage element. The processor stores, in data storage, a derived second HDL file defining the entity and including the port map.

Clock mapping in an integrated circuit design

A method of non-invasive insertion of logic functions into a register-transfer level (RTL) design, including: selecting a logic function to insert into a RTL design; identifying each hierarchical level executing at least a portion of the logic function; identifying a highest hierarchical level amongst hierarchical levels having each hierarchical level executing at least a portion of the logic function; and inserting all connections necessary to execute the logic function into a hardware description representation of the highest hierarchical level, without modifying a hardware description representation of any other hierarchical levels.

Non-invasive insertion of logic functions into a register-transfer level ('RTL') design

A method, system and computer program product for modeling and simulating a powergated hierarchical element of an integrated circuit is disclosed. In modeling a powergated macro, the invention does not model all logic gates or elements as powergated, instead, the invention only models latches as connected to an integrated switch to be powergated. In addition, a fence circuit attached to the powergated macro is modeled as including an extra control signal to force a powergated state of the powergated macro into the fence circuit.

Modeling and simulating a powergated hierarchical element

A method for synthesizing aggregate data types, in accordance with the present invention, includes representing aggregate data types in a control data flow graph, by representing aggregate objects as operand nodes, and operations on the aggregate objects as operation nodes. One-dimensional bit vectors are formed for the operand nodes, by recursively traversing through fields of the aggregate data type associated with the aggregate objects. Read and write operation nodes are formed in the control data flow graph for representing language constructs for accessing the aggregate objects. The control data flow graph is mapped onto hardware.

Synthesis of arrays and records

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New York, NY, United States of America

Stephen J Barnfield