Triscend Corporation

Xilinx, Inc.

Agate Logic, Inc.

Steven Winegarden

Brian Fox

Andreas Papaliolios

Sridhar Krishnamurthy

Bart Reynolds

Arye Ziklik

Edmond Y Cheung

Jean-Didier Allegrucci

Fung Fung Lee

Wilson Kaming Yee

Danesh Tavana

Ronald H Nicholson, Jr

Ernst W Mayer

Ronald Nicholson

John Jun Yu

Steven K Knapp

Stanley S Yang

The present invention provides architectures for hybrid integrated circuits and methods for producing these hybrid integrated circuits that contain both field programmable gate arrays and mask programmable gate arrays, a form of application specific integrated circuits. Methods for producing an integrated circuit that is field programmable as well as mask programmable include the steps of: designing wafer bank layers and finishing layers, where the wafer bank layers provide a plurality of selectable functional blocks; fabricating said wafer bank layers; designing mask programmed interconnect layers for said integrated circuit, where the interconnect layers interconnect selected ones of the plurality of functional blocks from the wafer bank layers; fabricating the interconnect layers on the wafer bank layers; and fabricating the finishing layers on the interconnect layers to produce the integrated circuit. Architectures for these integrated circuits can contain a field programmable gate array that is integrated with a mask programmable gate array in a ring structure.

Hybrid integrated circuits and their methods of fabrication

Methods for interconnecting base, switching and interconnect resources for configurable integrated circuits are provided, where these methods include the following steps: interconnecting base and switching resources with interconnect resources to form a hierarchical interconnect structure; physically placing the hierarchical interconnect structure in a two dimensional format; and directly interconnecting selected neighboring base and switching resources. The integrated circuits generated include base resources, interconnect resources; and switching resources that are interconnected to form a hierarchical interconnect structure, and, additional interconnect resources that directly interconnect neighboring switching or base resources.

Integrated circuits with hybrid planer hierarchical architecture and methods for interconnecting their resources

The I/O circuit of the present invention provides optimal flexibility and performance using a number of different structures and methods. The present invention provides a signal follower circuit for an input pad. In one embodiment, the output buffer is capable of injecting a constant onto a pad during reconfiguration of a configurable system logic circuit. The present invention also provides a circuit for generating a programmable data propagation delay, thereby guaranteeing zero hold time for an arbitrary input register. Zero hold time is accomplished by allowing the user to optimally characterize clock delay to a given input/output circuit. The present invention also provides fast switching between input pads, thereby minimizing data propagation delay between the input pads. Additionally, the present invention reduces time spent in production product test by facilitating the testing of multiple routes with one test configuration. A circuit expanding the number of data input channels available to system routing is provided. Lastly, a plurality of identical input/output block tiles (IOBTs) is disclosed, thereby enabling each I/O circuit to provide the same signals regardless of the IOBTs location in the I/O circuit.

Input/output circuit with user programmable functions

Interface logic is disclosed. The interface logic comprises a first address decoder, a first set of mode logic coupled to the address decoder and a first selector coupled to the first set of mode logic. The interface logic is adaptable to connect the programmable logic to the system interconnect via one of a plurality of access modes supported by the system interconnect.

Programmable interface for a configurable system bus

An integrated circuit includes a debugging unit which uses a multi-master general purpose bus within the IC to perform debugging functions. The storage elements of the IC are mapped into the address space of the general purpose bus. The debugging unit can operate as a bus master and read from or write to the storage elements of the integrated circuit directly with the general purpose bus. Thus, the integrated circuit can be rapidly configured for testing and debugging. Furthermore, the debugging unit can work with a breakpoint unit on the IC to detect and analyze specific situations on the IC.

Bus mastering debugging system for integrated circuits

The configurable processor system includes a processor, an internal system bus, and a programmable logic all interconnected via the internal system bus, on a single integrated circuit.

Configurable processor system unit

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Steven Winegarden