Automated Design Constraint Generation for Electronic Circuits
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing design flow for electronic circuit design faces challenges in manually creating and maintaining correct and consistent design constraints, especially as design complexity increases, leading to potential errors and inconsistencies that can result in sub-optimal designs or silicon failures.
Innovation Solution
An automated methodology for generating design constraints that integrates block-level constraints into top-level constraints using structural analysis and formal validation techniques, supporting both RTL and gate-level designs, and allowing for flexible generation of timing exceptions to improve design quality and reduce errors.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If design constraints are developed manually, then flexibility in customization is improved, but error susceptibility and consistency maintenance become problematic
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables self-service constraint generation by automatically extracting timing constraints directly from the design netlist and hierarchy structure without requiring manual specification. The constraint generation engine autonomously identifies clock domains, path relationships, and timing parameters from the design itself, eliminating manual errors while maintaining adaptability through configurable extraction rules.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the manual mechanical process of constraint specification with an automated computational system. The constraint generation engine uses algorithmic analysis of the design netlist, hierarchy information, and timing data to automatically generate constraints, substituting human manual operations with a deterministic computational process that eliminates human error while maintaining flexibility through configurable parameters.
2Device complexity
If design complexity increases and design is partitioned into multiple blocks, then manageability is improved, but constraint correctness and consistency between blocks become challenging
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the constraint generation process to work hierarchically with design partitions. It processes each block independently to generate local constraints, then integrates these with top-level constraints through a unified constraint set. The methodology maintains consistency across block boundaries by using hierarchical netlist analysis and ensuring that interface constraints are properly propagated between blocks and the top level.
Solution Approach 2:
The constraint generation system implements feedback mechanisms to verify consistency between block-level and top-level constraints. The engine analyzes the hierarchical design structure, generates constraints at each level, and validates their consistency through iterative checking. Any inconsistencies are detected and resolved by adjusting constraints to maintain correctness across the entire design hierarchy.
3Measurement precision
If static timing analysis is used to verify timing constraints, then timing verification is improved, but false paths may be incorrectly identified as critical
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary analysis of path sensitizability before including paths in timing verification. By analyzing the logical function and control signals of gates along potential critical paths, the system pre-identifies and excludes false paths from the timing constraint set. This preliminary filtering action prevents static timing analysis from incorrectly reporting false paths as timing violations, improving the reliability of timing verification.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and system for generating design constraints for an electronic circuit design is disclosed. The method and system include reading a design description and an existing design constraint file, configuring design constraint integration rules, writing a new design constraint file, evaluating results of the new design constraint file, and replacing existing design constraint file with the new design constraint file.