Method of optimizing repeater placement in long lines of a complex integrated circuit
First Claim
1. A method of operating a general-purpose computer system to minimize a time delay required for a signal to propagate between a first node and a second node of an integrated circuit, wherein a simulation of the integrated circuit is stored as circuit data in a first region of memory in the computer system, the method comprising:
- analyzing the circuit data in the first region of memory to obtain signal-propagation-speed characteristics for a conductor connected between the first and second nodes;
generating a first simulated time delay representing a time required for the signal to propagate between the first and second nodes over said conductor;
deciding, based on the signal-propagation-speed characteristics of the conductor, whether separating the conductor into line segments, each of the line segments being separated from another of the line segments by a repeater amplifier, decreases the time required for the signal to propagate between the first and second nodes; and
indicating how many of the line segments are required to minimize the time delay required for said signal to propagate between said first node and said second node if separating the conductor into the plurality of segments decreases the time required for the signal to propagate between the first and second nodes.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method includes operating a general purpose computer system to minimize signal-propagation delay time of a long line of a simulated circuit. A design engineer empirically derives two rule bases, the first of which determines whether to divide the long line into two or more segments by inserting repeater amplifiers into a long line to minimize the propagation delay through the line. The second rule base relates optimum amplifier size for driving long lines to line length. These rule bases are stored in a main memory of the computer system. The computer system is configured to apply the first rule base to the long line to determine whether to divide the long line into two or more segments by inserting repeater amplifiers, and to apply the second rule base to optimize the size of each of the repeater amplifiers. The resulting long line, segmented by size-optimized repeater amplifiers, provides minimal signal-propagation delay.
44 Citations
17 Claims
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1. A method of operating a general-purpose computer system to minimize a time delay required for a signal to propagate between a first node and a second node of an integrated circuit, wherein a simulation of the integrated circuit is stored as circuit data in a first region of memory in the computer system, the method comprising:
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analyzing the circuit data in the first region of memory to obtain signal-propagation-speed characteristics for a conductor connected between the first and second nodes; generating a first simulated time delay representing a time required for the signal to propagate between the first and second nodes over said conductor; deciding, based on the signal-propagation-speed characteristics of the conductor, whether separating the conductor into line segments, each of the line segments being separated from another of the line segments by a repeater amplifier, decreases the time required for the signal to propagate between the first and second nodes; and indicating how many of the line segments are required to minimize the time delay required for said signal to propagate between said first node and said second node if separating the conductor into the plurality of segments decreases the time required for the signal to propagate between the first and second nodes. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method of operating a general-purpose computer system to minimize a simulated time delay required for a signal to propagate between a first node and a second node on a simulated circuit stored as circuit data in a first region of a memory in the computer system, the method comprising:
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creating a first rule base for determining an optimum number of segments in which to divide a conductor connected between the first and second nodes; creating a second rule base for determining an optimum driver size for the conductor; storing the first rule base in a second region of the memory and the second rule base in a third region of the memory; analyzing the circuit data in the first region of the memory to generate an RC time constant of the conductor; generating a signal-propagation delay associated with the conductor; deciding, using the RC time constant and the first rule base, whether to separate the conductor into a plurality of line segments, wherein each line segment in said plurality of line segments is separated from another line segment in said plurality of line segments by a repeater amplifier; indicating how many of the line segments are required to minimize the time delay required for said signal to propagate between said first node and said second node if separating the conductor into the plurality of line segments decreases the time required for the signal to propagate between the first and second nodes; and generating an optimum size for each repeater amplifier using the first rule base. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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Specification