RTL Hotspot Analysis for Physical Implementation Issues
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Physical implementation failures in integrated circuit (IC) designs, such as timing and routing issues, are often detected late in the development cycle, leading to increased time and cost risks due to the complexity of advanced technology processes, and existing EDA tools fail to consider interactions between detected issues, thereby increasing the risk of design failures.
Innovation Solution
A method for analyzing physical implementation issues in pre-placement IC designs using a computing system that analyzes logic cells for physical issue metrics, identifies critical cells, measures severity based on threshold values, and generates a hotspot severity report to identify and address potential design hotspots before physical implementation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If physical implementation issues are detected using existing EDA tools with checking rules, then individual issues such as high fan-in, high fan-out, and large multiplexors can be identified, but the interactions between multiple detected issues are not considered, greatly increasing the risk of physical implementation failure
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines multiple individual issue detections into a unified hotspot analysis framework. Instead of treating high fan-in, high fan-out, and large multiplexors as separate issues, the system merges them into collections of logic cells that form hotspots, analyzing their interactions and cumulative impact on physical implementation success.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces hotspot severity metrics as an intermediary measure that bridges individual issue detections and overall physical implementation risk. These metrics aggregate and weight multiple issues to predict implementation failure probability, enabling designers to prioritize corrections based on combined impact rather than isolated issues.
2Reliability
If design utilization is decreased to resolve physical implementation issues, then timing and routing problems may be alleviated, but larger silicon area is required
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary hotspot analysis and severity assessment before floor planning and physical implementation. By identifying and addressing high-severity hotspots in advance through RTL modifications, the system prevents implementation failures without requiring post-synthesis area increases or floor plan changes.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes design parameters at the RTL level (logic structure, cell arrangement, routing topology) to resolve hotspot issues. Instead of decreasing utilization to fix timing or routing problems, the system modifies logical parameters and connectivity to eliminate hotspots while maintaining optimal area utilization.
3Reliability
If the floor plan is changed to allocate more area for affected blocks, then physical implementation issues may be resolved, but sub-optimal floor plan and degradation in design performance occur
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary hotspot analysis before floor planning to identify potential implementation issues. By resolving high-severity hotspots through RTL modifications in advance, the system eliminates the need for subsequent floor plan changes that would compromise performance or require iterative redesign.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies preliminary anti-action by preventing floor plan degradation before it occurs. Through early hotspot detection and RTL-level corrections, the system counteracts the tendency toward sub-optimal floor planning and performance loss that would otherwise result from reactive design changes.
4Reliability
If design HDL description is changed to resolve physical implementation issues, then implementation success may improve, but significant time and development cost are incurred
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary hotspot analysis and severity assessment early in the design cycle, before floor planning and physical implementation. This early detection enables targeted RTL modifications that resolve implementation issues in the first iteration, avoiding repeated design cycles and reducing total development time.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by focusing corrections only on high-severity hotspots rather than making global design changes. The hotspot severity metric identifies specific logic cells requiring modification, enabling precise, minimal RTL changes that resolve implementation issues without requiring comprehensive design redesign.
Data Source
AI summary
This invention provides a method for detecting physical implementation hot-spots in a pre-placement integrated circuit design. The method first identifies physical issues at an object level. Physical issues include timing, routing congestion, clocking, scan, power, and thermal. The method then analyzes these physical issues over a collection of connected logic cell and large cell instances and determines a physical implementation hot-spot severity based on the number and severity of physical issues as well as the number of objects in the related collection.