Design analysis workstation for analyzing integrated circuits
First Claim
1. A system for extracting design and layout information from a plurality of image-mosaics representative of a deconstructed integrated circuit, the system comprising facilities enabling parallel design analysis of the image-mosaics by a plurality of engineer analysts concurrently reverse engineering an integrated circuit (IC), the facilities including:
- annotation ownership tracking which assigns an ownership attribute that specifies an engineer analyst associated with the design analysis workstation at a time when the annotation object was created;
unique annotation label generation which generates unique labels to ensure that each annotation label generated is unique across an IC analysis project;
annotation locking which permits a creator of an annotation to prevent other engineer anaysts from changing the annotation object; and
, annotation merging which permits an engineer analyst to load an annotation object owned by another engineer analyst.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A design analysis workstation for performing design analysis of integrated circuits provides facilities for extracting design and layout information from digital image-mosaics captured during deconstruction of an integrated circuit. Each image-mosaic is displayed in at least one mosaic-view as a background image that is overlaid with at least one annotation overlay. An engineer analyst creates annotation objects on the annotation overlay based on information inferred concurrently from one or more image-mosaics. Concurrent display of a plurality of image-mosaics facilitates the understanding of interrelations between components on different layers. The design analysis workstation displays a plurality of cursors in respective views of mosaic-images, the cursors having lock-step motion to facilitate comprehension of the alignment of features on different concurrently displayed image-mosaics. The design analysis workstation provides facilities for performing operations on created annotation objects including grouping, cell definition, signal carrier creation, contact creation, signal propagation, net-list generation, etc. The advantages include annotation of image-mosaics using information derived from a plurality of concurrently displayed mosaic-views to facilitate tracing of interconnected busses and an understanding of interrelations between components.
47 Citations
13 Claims
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1. A system for extracting design and layout information from a plurality of image-mosaics representative of a deconstructed integrated circuit, the system comprising facilities enabling parallel design analysis of the image-mosaics by a plurality of engineer analysts concurrently reverse engineering an integrated circuit (IC), the facilities including:
- annotation ownership tracking which assigns an ownership attribute that specifies an engineer analyst associated with the design analysis workstation at a time when the annotation object was created;
unique annotation label generation which generates unique labels to ensure that each annotation label generated is unique across an IC analysis project;
annotation locking which permits a creator of an annotation to prevent other engineer anaysts from changing the annotation object; and
, annotation merging which permits an engineer analyst to load an annotation object owned by another engineer analyst. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
- annotation ownership tracking which assigns an ownership attribute that specifies an engineer analyst associated with the design analysis workstation at a time when the annotation object was created;
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8. A method of extracting design and layout information from a plurality of image-mosaics representative of a deconstructed integrated circuit the method comprising enabling parallel design analysis of the image-mosaics by a plurality of engineer analysts concurrently reverse engineering an integrated circuit (IC) using multi-user extensions to provide facilities to synchronize work of multiple engineer-analysts working on an IC reverse-engineering project, the facilities enabling parallel design analysis of the image-mosaics by a plurality of engineer analysts concurrently reverse engineering an integrated circuit (IC), including:
- annotation ownership tracking which assigns an ownership attribute that specifies an engineer analyst associated with the design analysis workstation at a time when the annotation object was created;
unique annotation label generation which generates unique labels to ensure that each annotation label generated is unique across an IC analysis project;
annotation locking which permits a creator of an annotation to prevent other engineer anaysts from changing the annotation object; and
annotation merging which permits an engineer analyst to load an annotation object owned by another engineer analyst. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
- annotation ownership tracking which assigns an ownership attribute that specifies an engineer analyst associated with the design analysis workstation at a time when the annotation object was created;
Specification