Trace Signature Analysis for Circuit Debugging
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing circuit design analysis and debugging techniques, particularly at the RTL level, face challenges in efficiently identifying and analyzing commonalities and differences in trace signatures, making it difficult for designers to understand the behavior of complex circuit designs.
Innovation Solution
The method involves extracting signatures from waveforms, converting them into expressions, applying negation as constraints to generate new traces, and analyzing these signatures to determine common literals, which are then used to organize traces into a hierarchy, enabling better circuit analysis and debugging tools.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If existing verification tools generate additional traces by appending signal values to the end of parent traces, then the trace generation process can be completed, but it becomes unclear to users what commonalities and differences are present in the various segments of the resulting trace
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments traces into hierarchical levels based on commonalities and differences in signal values. Each trace is divided into segments that share common literals, and these segments are organized into a hierarchy where parent traces represent commonalities and child traces represent differences. This segmentation makes it easier for users to identify patterns and understand trace relationships without processing the entire trace at once.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary representation called a 'trace signature' that captures the essential characteristics of traces without storing the complete trace data. The signature includes a set of literals and their associated signal values, serving as a condensed intermediary that preserves the important information needed for comparison while reducing complexity for user analysis.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the complexity in circuit design has increased, then more sophisticated analysis and debugging techniques are needed, but existing techniques have not kept pace with the complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the parameter representation from complete trace waveforms to condensed trace signatures that capture essential signal value patterns. By representing traces as sets of literals with their values rather than complete temporal sequences, the system can handle complex circuit designs more efficiently while maintaining analytical power. This parameter transformation enables productivity gains despite increasing circuit complexity.
3Reliability
If formal methods are used to verify design properties completely, then verification thoroughness is improved, but the time and computational resources required increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential information from complete traces to create trace signatures. By taking out and retaining only the critical signal value patterns and their temporal relationships, the system maintains verification thoroughness while reducing the computational burden. The extraction process filters out redundant information while preserving the essential verification capabilities needed for formal methods.
Data Source
AI summary
A first signal trace is received including signal values satisfying a target event. A first trace signature is generated describing a portion of the first signal trace that causes the target event to occur. A second signal trace is generated that includes signal values satisfying the target event. A second trace signature is generated describing a portion of the second signal trace that causes the target event to occur. Differential signal events are determined that differentiate the first trace signature from the second trace signature. The differential signal events are events from the first signal trace that cause the target event to occur, but do not appear in the second trace signature. The process can be repeated to receive a plurality of signal traces, and to generate a plurality of signal traces. The differential signal events are indexed in a datastore in association with the signal traces.