Accessing multiple user states concurrently in a configurable IC

• US 8,433,891 B2
• Filed: 08/27/2010
• Issued: 04/30/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tahoe Research Limited (f/k/a Learndale Limited) (Vector Capital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Tabula Incorporated
• Inventors: Schmit, Herman, Khubchandani, Teju, Redgrave, Jason, Hutchings, Brad, Teig, Steven
• Primary Examiner(s): Elamin, M
• Application Number:
  US12/870,779
• Publication Number:
  US 20110060896A1
• Time in Patent Office: 977 Days
• Field of Search: 713/1, 713/2, 713/100, 326/9, 326/16, 326/38, 326/39
• US Class Current: 713/100
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 19/1731 Optimisation thereof
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 19/177 arranged in matrix form
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 19/17704 the logic functions being realised by the interconnection of rows and columns
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 19/17736 Structural details of routing resources
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 19/17748 Structural details of configuration resources
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 19/17756 for partial configuration or partial reconfiguration
• CPC Class Codes: H03K 19/17764 for reliability

Abstract

Some embodiments of the invention provide a configuration/debug network for configuring and debugging a configurable integrated circuit (IC). The configurable IC in some embodiments includes configurable resources (e.g., configurable logic resources, routing resources, memory resources, etc.) that can be grouped in conceptual configurable tiles that are arranged in several rows and columns. Some embodiments allow tiles to be individually addressed, globally addressed (i.e., all addressed together), or addressed based on their tile types. The configurable IC includes numerous user-design state elements (“UDS elements”) in some embodiments. In some embodiments, the configuration/debug network has a streaming mode that can direct various circuits in one or more configurable tiles to stream out their data during the operation of the configurable IC. Accordingly, in the embodiments where the configuration/debug network connects to some or all of the UDS elements, the configurable/debug network can be used in a streaming mode to stream out data from the UDS elements of the tiles, in order to identify any errors in the operation of the IC. In other words, the streaming of the data from the UDS elements can be used to debug the operation of the configurable IC. In some embodiments, the configuration/debug network has a broadcasting mode that can direct various resources (e.g., memories, storage elements, etc.) in one or more configurable tiles to store the same data. For instance, the broadcasting mode can be used to initialize the memory blocks in the configurable memory tiles.

Claims

1. A method of accessing an integrated circuit (IC) comprising a plurality of user design state (“

UDS”

) circuits and a plurality of configurable circuits for configurably performing a plurality of operations, the method comprising;

addressing the plurality of the UDS circuits concurrently while the IC is performing user-design operations; and

after addressing the plurality of the UDS circuits, concurrently reading state values stored by the addressed UDS circuits at least a user-design operating frequency while the IC is performing user-design operations.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said plurality of UDS circuits are arranged in a tile arrangement comprising an array of rows and columns, and wherein said concurrently reading state values comprises reading values from UDS circuits in a plurality of different tiles in different rows and columns.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said concurrently reading state values stored by the addressed UDS circuits occurs in a plurality of successive clock cycles.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said concurrently reading state values stored by the addressed UDS circuits comprises transmitting at least one read instruction.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising streaming UDS state values.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said streaming comprises repeatedly outputting said state values.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said concurrently reading state values comprises concurrently receiving state values from addressed UDS circuits into a trace buffer.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising defining merge values for specifying how state values from two different UDS circuits should merge onto a shared resource.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the shared resource is a bus line.

10. The method of claim 8 further comprising outputting the read state values and merged state values from the IC.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein different sets of the plurality of UDS circuits are grouped in a plurality of different tiles, wherein addressing the plurality of UDS circuits concurrently comprises, for each of a plurality of tiles:

transmitting a packet comprising a first frame containing a first address for the tile over a network of the IC and

transmitting a second frame containing a second address for a particular UDS circuit within the tile.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein the user-design operations are performed by configurable circuits for which configuration data was loaded onto the IC at a boot up time of the IC.

11. An integrated circuit (IC) comprising:

a plurality of configurable circuits for configurably performing a plurality of operations;

a plurality of user design state (UDS) circuits; and

a network communicatively coupled to the UDS circuits, said network for concurrently addressing a plurality of the UDS circuits while the IC is in a user design operation mode.

12. The IC of claim 11, wherein said UDS circuits are arranged in a plurality of tiles.

13. The IC of claim 12, wherein said IC comprises at least one memory array within said tiles.

14. The IC of claim 11, wherein the network is arranged to write values concurrently to a plurality of different tiles.

15. The IC of claim 11, wherein the UDS circuits are configurable interconnect circuits that are configured as state elements.

16. The IC of claim 11, wherein said network is a first network and wherein said plurality of configurable circuits comprises a plurality of configurable logic circuits for performing logic functions and a plurality of configurable routing circuits that form a second network for routing user data between said configurable logic circuits.

17. A method of accessing an integrated circuit (IC) comprising a plurality of configurable circuits for configurably performing a plurality of operations, said IC comprising a plurality of user design state (“

UDS”

) circuits, the method comprising;

addressing a plurality of the UDS circuits concurrently while the IC is performing user-design operations; and

after addressing the plurality of the UDS circuits, concurrently writing state values to the addressed UDS circuits while the IC is performing user-design operations.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein said addressing comprises transmitting an address specifying a type of circuit in the IC.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein said addressing comprises transmitting a data packet comprising an address specifying a global tile type and a specific tile type.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein said addressing comprises transmitting a data packet comprising an address specifying global tile type and a tile address that identifies a plurality of tiles being addressed.