Method and apparatus for simplifying schematic diagrams of integrated circuit designs

Abstract

The interactive grouping tool offers the flexibility to simplify the schematic diagram of an integrated circuit (IC) design by grouping circuit elements that are not specified to be of interest into entities of any size. Circuit elements of various types and functionalities, including ports and pins, can be combined together into the same entity without modifying the underlying design logic and connectivity. By grouping and hiding the unnecessary details, the tool reduces clutter in a schematic diagram and greatly eases the process of traversing, debugging, and analyzing the schematic diagram. Users can choose to dynamically group the circuit elements on the schematic diagram without going through any compilation or synthesis process. Users can also choose to revert any of the entities back to the original schematic diagram with the ungrouping operation. For specific or batch manipulation of the schematic diagram, the tool provides a scripting interface for users to enter commands. The content of selected entities can be changed by using the drag-and-drop technique for certain operations including moving nodes into, removing nodes from, and adding nodes into an entity.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates generally to designing integrated circuits (ICs) and, more particularly, to simplified schematics for IC designs. Background technique [0002] One of the processes in the design cycle of an IC includes defining the IC design at the register transfer level (RTL), where the designer determines the flow of signals between hardware registers and the logical operations performed on the signals. In RTL design, designers use a hardware design language (HDL) to declare registers and describe combinational logic by using constructs (such as if-then-else) and arithmetic operations similar to those in standard programming languages. Examples of HDL include Verilog and VHDL. [0003] Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software is commonly used in designing ICs. By using EDA software during a process called synthesis in the IC design cycle, an HDL file can be converted into an equivalent netlist containing generic hardware primitive...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Although the partition feature only reduces the amount of detail per page, it does not hide unnecessary detail

Images