Circuit Design Behavioral Indexing for Verification

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Solution Overview

Problem

The increasing complexity of electronic circuits makes it difficult to verify design changes incrementally, leading to unintended side-effects and high costs in uncovering design bugs, with existing solutions like directed testing and formal assertion-based verification being non-trivial and inefficient.

Innovation Solution

A system that generates waveforms for circuit designs, allowing designers to tag and index behaviors, which are stored with textual descriptions, enabling dynamic updates and improved communication, analysis, and comprehension of circuit behaviors.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Productivity

If circuit designs are built incrementally, then productivity is improved, but design verification becomes difficult and bugs are hard to detect

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedesign productivityVSAvoiddesign verification quality

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The system automatically generates waveforms from the circuit design and uses them to extract and update behavior descriptions in real-time, creating a feedback loop that continuously verifies design changes. This allows incremental design updates to be automatically checked against expected behaviors, maintaining verification quality while preserving productivity benefits.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

Solution Approach 2:

The system enables self-verification by automatically extracting behavior descriptions from waveforms generated by the circuit design itself, without requiring external directed testing or formal assertion methods. The design essentially verifies itself through automated waveform analysis and behavior extraction.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

2Loss of information

If static textual descriptions are used to document circuit behaviors, then communication is improved, but the descriptions become outdated when design changes occur

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedesign behavior communicationVSAvoidtime to update documentation

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system transforms static textual descriptions into dynamic, automatically updating behavior descriptions. When the circuit design changes, the system automatically generates new waveforms and extracts updated behavior descriptions, ensuring documentation always reflects the current design state without manual intervention.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #15Dynamics

Solution Approach 2:

The system performs preliminary extraction of behavior descriptions from waveforms and stores them in a data store before design changes occur. When changes are made, the updated behaviors are automatically extracted and stored, proactively maintaining current documentation rather than reacting to outdated information.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

3Reliability

If directed testing is used for verification, then design quality is improved, but the effort required is non-trivial and results are not persistent

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedesign verification qualityVSAvoidverification efficiency

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The system eliminates the need for external directed testing expertise by enabling the circuit design to self-verify through automated waveform generation and behavior extraction. The verification process becomes self-service, requiring no specialized testing knowledge while maintaining high verification quality through automated comparison of actual vs. expected behaviors.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

Solution Approach 2:

Instead of discarding verification results after each testing session, the system recovers and persists behavior descriptions in a data store, automatically updating them when design changes occur. This creates persistent verification knowledge that accumulates over time rather than being lost with each testing cycle.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #34Discarding and recovering

4Reliability

If formal assertion based verification is used, then design verification is improved, but deployment is difficult due to lack of designer knowledge

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedesign verification qualityVSAvoidverification deployment ease

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The system replaces complex formal assertion-based verification mechanisms with automated waveform analysis and behavior extraction. Instead of requiring designers to write and deploy formal assertions, the system automatically generates waveforms and extracts behavior descriptions, substituting expert knowledge requirements with automated processing that any designer can use.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

Data Source

PatentUS8831925B1Indexing behaviors and recipes of a circuit design

Publication Date: 2014.09.09 JASPER DESIGN AUTOMATION

AI summary

An executable circuit design is used to generate waveforms, from which behaviors of the circuit are captured. The behaviors and various combinations thereof can then be saved in a database, along with descriptions and other metadata about them, thereby generating a behavioral index of the circuit design code. Behavioral indexing of circuit designs allows a user to maintain an indexed behavior database, track changes in behaviors as the circuit design's executable description evolves, and figure out how the executable description can be reused in different projects. When applied to digital design development, it facilities the current design and verification effort, as well as design reuse down the line.