Operational cycle assignment in a configurable IC

• US 7,694,265 B2
• Filed: 08/18/2008
• Issued: 04/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Altera Corporation (Intel Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Tabula Incorporated
• Inventors: Rohe, Andre, Teig, Steven
• Primary Examiner(s): Siek, Vuthe
• Assistant Examiner(s): Sandoval, Patrick
• Application Number:
  US12/193,707
• Publication Number:
  US 20090037862A1
• Time in Patent Office: 596 Days
• Field of Search: 716 16- 18, 716/8
• US Class Current: 716/126
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/34 for reconfigurable circuits, e.g. field programmable gate arrays [FPGA] or programmable logic devices [PLD]
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 19/17752 for hot reconfiguration
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 19/17756 for partial configuration or partial reconfiguration
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 19/17758 for speeding up configuration or reconfiguration

Abstract

Some embodiments provide a method of designing a configurable integrated circuit (“IC”) with several configurable circuits. The method receives a design having several sets of operations for the configurable circuits to perform in different operational cycles. For at least a first set of operations that has a start operation and an end operation, the method assigns a particular operation in the first set to a first operational cycle based at least partially on the position of the particular operation with respect to the start and end operations.

Claims

1. A method of assigning operations of a plurality of IC-design components to different operational cycles, each component along at least one signal path comprising multiple components, at least one component on multiple signal paths, the method comprising:

a) performing a sort of the plurality of components based on a normalized distance metric value for each component that expresses, in a normalized scale, distances between the component and source and target points of its respective signal paths, wherein the normalized distance metric value for the component on multiple signal paths accounts for positions of the component along at least two of its signal paths; and

b) assigning the components to multiple different operational cycles based on the sort,

wherein the performance of the sort and the assignment of the components are performed by a computer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein performing the sort comprises ordering the components in ascending order of metric value.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the operational cycles are reconfiguration cycles.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein assigning the components comprises assigning an equal number of components to each of the different operational cycles.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising, for at least one signal path, inserting a state element into the signal path between a first operational cycle and a second operational cycle.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising assigning each of the components to an initial physical location on a configurable IC.

7. A computer readable medium storing a computer program which when executed by at least one processor assigns operations of a plurality of IC-design components to different operational cycles, each component along at least one signal path comprising multiple components, at least one component on multiple signal paths, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for:

a) performing a sort of the plurality of components based on a normalized distance metric value for each component that expresses, in a normalized scale, distances between the component and source and target points of its respective signal paths, wherein the normalized distance metric value for the component on multiple signal paths accounts for positions of the component along at least two of its signal paths; and

b) assigning the components to multiple different operational cycles based on the sort.

8. The computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein performing the sort comprises ordering the components in ascending order of metric value.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the operational cycles are reconfiguration cycles.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein assigning the components comprises assigning an equal number of components to each of the different operational cycles.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 7 further comprising a set of instructions for inserting a state element into at least one signal path between a first operational cycle and a second operational cycle.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 7 further comprising a set of instructions for assigning each of the components to an initial physical location on a configurable IC.

13. A computer readable medium storing a computer program which when executed by at least one processor assigns a plurality of IC-design components to different operational cycles, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for:

calculating, for each of a plurality of the components, a metric value that expresses a position of the component along at least one signal path, wherein the metric values are normalized based on length of the signal paths wherein a particular component is on multiple signal paths, wherein the normalized metric value for the particular component is a maximum number of components from the particular component to a source component for one of the multiple signal paths divided by a sum of the maximum number of components from the particular component to the source component and a maximum number of components from the particular component to a target component for one of the multiple signal paths;

sorting the components in an order based on the calculated metric values; and

assigning the components to the different operational cycle according to the sort.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 13, wherein the assignment is an initial assignment of the components, the computer program further comprising a set of instructions for optimizing the assignment of the components to the different operational cycles after initially assigning the components.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 13, wherein the normalized metric value is a value between zero and one.