Apparatus for evaluating and demonstrating electronic circuits and components

• US 7,835,896 B1
• Filed: 04/06/1999
• Issued: 11/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: RODE Consulting Incorporated
• Original Assignee: RODE Consulting Incorporated
• Inventors: Rode, Christian Stig
• Primary Examiner(s): PHAN, THAI Q
• Application Number:
  US09/287,478
• Time in Patent Office: 4,242 Days
• Field of Search: 703/14, 703/17, 716/4, 716/16, 716/19, 716/1, 707/8, 707/10, 709/106, 709/302, 709/232, 709/203, 700/97
• US Class Current: 703/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/541 Client-server
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication

Abstract

A new system for simulation of electrical circuits and devices over a network is disclosed. The system consists of at least a client computer, a server computer, a network that connects them (including intermediate proxy servers and routers) and software methods. New software methods are disclosed that combine client-submitted data from the internet with template data, simulate the combined data using a simulator such as SPICE and create display and other data for transport to and display on the client computer. Additional methods are disclosed relating to circuit synthesis prior to simulation, access control, limiting resource use and abuse, expiration of temporary files and identifiers and usage logging.

Claims

1. A server simulation method, for use with at least one Client communicating with at least one Server over a Network by means of a Stateless Communications Protocol, said simulation method comprising the steps of:

a) synthesizing a Unique Identifier and transmitting said Unique Identifier by means of said Stateless Communications Protocol to at least one Client, said Unique Identifier of a data type compatible with proxies for said Stateless Communications Protocol and said Unique Identifier to be used by at least one Server for at least one of the purposes of a) maintaining server state including, but not limited to, separation and management of User data, b) limiting access to or limiting use of server resources, c) tracking server usage or d) server security;

b) transmitting Form Creation Data to said at least one Client;

c) accepting User Form Data and said Unique Identifier from said at least one Client;

d) merging said User Form Data from said at least one Client with other data, including simulation template data;

e) processing said merged data to produce output data, wherein said output data are functions of a simulation and in a format compatible with said at least one Client display instructions;

f) transmitting said output data to said at least one Client.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein only steps c-f may be repeated for each new simulation of the same form and wherein only steps b-f may be repeated for each simulation of a new form.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein at least some of said output data is automatically rendered by Client methods for graphical display.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein said Unique Identifier is used to keep the data of each user separate from all other users, with high probability (>

99%).

5. The method of claim 4 wherein said user data is stored in temporary files with a limited lifetime.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the Unique Identifier is made verifiable by means of an internal checksum.

7. The method of claim 1, comprising the following additional steps before processing of said merged data:

a) retrieving a database record indexed by the Unique Identifier, said database record containing at least an associated simulation usage and timestamp;

b) creating a new database record when no existing record is found, said new database record indexed by the Unique Identifier and containing at least a simulation usage initialized to zero (0) and a timestamp initialized to the current time;

c) deleting said retrieved record and backing up at least one step, if said timestamp has become older than a certain threshold;

d) skipping at least the processing of said merged data, if the simulation usage per unit time has exceeded some threshold;

e) updating said simulation usage in said database record and saving the updated record in said database.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the simulation usage is used to lower the process priority of the simulation.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein additional steps related to circuit synthesis are inserted just before step b), such steps comprising:

aa) transmitting Circuit Synthesis Form Creation Data to said Client;

ab) accepting Circuit Synthesis Form Data from said Client;

ac) synthesizing a circuit according to said Circuit Synthesis Form Data, where said synthesized circuit and other temporary files are optionally kept on the Server and indexed by means of the Unique Identifier for eventual use in step 1e);

ad) creating Form Structure Data for use in step 1b), said Form Structure Data containing circuit topology data.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said assigned Unique Identifier is associated with superior or inferior privileges, said privileges comprising at least one of a) access to models and circuits, b) simulation priority and/or maximum simulation time, c) quality/accuracy of simulation methods employed, d) the maximum size and/or persistence of design and/or simulation data.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein some portion of the said User Form Data is logged together with at least said Unique Identifier for marketing, sales or debugging purposes. Suitable storage mechanisms for said logged data include, but are not limited to:

a) HTTP log file (if HTTP GET mechanism used to initiate simulation), b) file of a type and format determined by the simulation software or c) database record.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said Unique Identifier is created and transmitted contingent upon the user qualifying for access by successfully conveying appropriate qualification data from the Client to the Server.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein said assigned Unique Identifier is saved on the Client (e.g., a “

Cookie”

) to permit a simulation or synthesis session to be suspended and resumed at a later time without requiring the user to re-qualify for access.

14. The method of claim 1 with the additional ability to execute a plurality of simulation method steps c-f from a single Client concurrently, said plurality being reduced to a single simulation method by aborting all but the method steps corresponding to the last submitted Client User Form Data.

15. An interactive network simulation method, for use with at least one Client communicating with at least one Server over a Network by means of a Stateless Communications Protocol, said method comprising:

synthesizing a Unique Identifier and transmitting said Unique Identifier by means of said Stateless Communications Protocol from a Server to a Client, said Unique Identifier of a data type compatible with proxies for said Stateless Communications Protocol;

transmitting Form Creation Data from a Server to said Client;

transmitting Schematic data from a Server to said Client;

displaying a Form as described by said Form Creation Data and rendering an associated Schematic as described by said Schematic Data by display methods of said Client;

merging of User Form Data from said Client with other data, including simulation template data;

processing by a Server of said merged data to produce at least graphical output data, wherein said graphical output data are functions of a simulation and in a format compatible with said Client'"'"'s display instructions;

transmitting at least said graphical output data to said Client.

16. A server simulation method, for use with at least one Client communicating with at least one Server over a Network by means of a Stateless Communications Protocol, said simulation method comprising the steps of:

a) synthesizing a Unique Identifier and transmitting said Unique Identifier by means of said Stateless Communications Protocol to at least one Client, said Unique Identifier of a data type compatible with proxies for said Stateless Communications Protocol;

b) transmitting Form Structure Data to said at least one Client;

c) accepting User Form Data and said Unique Identifier from said at least one Client;

d) merging said User Form Data from said at least one Client with other data, including template data;

e) processing said merged data to produce output data, wherein said output data are functions of a simulation and in a format compatible with said at least one Client Browser instructions;

f) while processing said merged data to produce output data, simultaneously capable of accepting and processing new User Form Data from said at least one Client, reception of said new User Form Data with identical Unique Identifier causing present execution of simulation method to be aborted and associated resources freed in favor of processing of said new User Form Data;

g) transmitting said output data to said at least one Client.