초록 ▼

The present invention provides a computer-aided design system and method for designing an application specific integrated circuit which enables a user to define functional architecture independent specifications for the integrated circuit and which translates the functional architecture independent

The present invention provides a computer-aided design system and method for designing an application specific integrated circuit which enables a user to define functional architecture independent specifications for the integrated circuit and which translates the functional architecture independent specifications into the detailed information needed for directly producing the integrated circuit. The functional architecture independent specifications of the desired integrated circuit can be defined at the functional architecture independent level in a flowchart format. From the flowchart, the system and method uses artificial intelligence and expert systems technology to generate a system controller, to select the necessary integrated circuit hardware cells needed to achieve the functional specifications, and to generate data and control paths for operation of the integrated circuit. This list of hardware cells and their interconnection requirements is set forth in a netlist. From the netlist it is possible using known manual techniques or existing VLSI CAD layout systems to generate the detailed chip level topological information (mask data) required to produce the particular application specific integrated circuit.

대표청구항 ▼

A computer-aided design system for designing an application specific integrated circuit directly from architecture independent functional specifications for the integrated circuit, comprising a macro library defining a set of architecture independent operations comprised of actions and conditions; i

A computer-aided design system for designing an application specific integrated circuit directly from architecture independent functional specifications for the integrated circuit, comprising a macro library defining a set of architecture independent operations comprised of actions and conditions; input specification means operable by a user for defining architecture independent functional specifications for the integrated circuit, said functional specifications being comprised of a series of operations comprised of actions and conditions, said input specification means including means to permit the user to specify for each operation a macro selected from said macro library; a cell library defining a set of available integrated circuit hardware cells for performing the available operations defined in said macro library; cell selection means for selecting from said cell library for each macro specified by said input specification means, appropriate hardware cells for performing the operation defined by the specified macro, said cell selection means comprising an expert system including a knowledge base containing rules for. selecting hardware cells from said cell library and inference engine means for selecting appropriate hardware cells from said cell library in accordance with the rules of said knowledge base; and netlist generator means cooperating with said cell selection means for generating as output from the system a netlist defining the hardware cells which are needed to achieve the functional requirements of the integrated circuit and the connections therebetween.