The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 13, 2002
Filed:
Oct. 26, 1999
Thomas Charles Brennan, Rochester, MN (US);
Kevin Charles Gower, LaGrangeville, NY (US);
Daniel John Kolor, Wappingers Falls, NY (US);
Erik Victor Kusko, Hopewell Junction, NY (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
An automated method for designing a signal distribution network in an integrated circuit confines the circuits relating to a particular signal, such as a clock signal, to multiple areas equally distributed over the integrated circuit. Each of the multiple areas have tightly-coupled logic connected to a root driver circuit in which the root driver circuit is connected to the signal input. Within the areas of tightly-coupled logic, user-defined placement circuits or groups such as a programmable clock delay having gates, delays, and splitters are connected to the root driver circuit in accordance with wire capacitance targets and input pin load balancing among all the multiple areas. The input pin load balancing and the wire capacitance targets of the user-defined placement groups connected to the root driver circuit in one of the multiple areas matches the input pin load balancing and the wire capacitance targets of other groups connected to other root driver circuits in other multiple areas. Thus, skew is minimized during the automated placement of the design of the signal distribution network.