Fault support in an emulation environment
First Claim
1. A method of loading a design into a hardware emulator, comprising:
- storing faults, associated with components on an emulator board, in memory on the emulator board, the stored faults indicating defective or unusable resources on the emulator board;
compiling the design to be emulated by avoiding use of components with the faults by accessing the stored faults during compilation; and
loading the compiled design into the emulator.
3 Assignments
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Accused Products
Abstract
An emulator is disclosed that allows for diagnoses of failures or defects within the emulator. A map of faulty resources is generated to identify which resources should be avoided during compilation. Thus, in a transparent and automated manner, defects found during diagnostics are stored in a database of unusable emulator resources. A compiler has access to the database and compiles the design taking into account unusable resources. In another embodiment, the defects of an emulator board are stored on the emulator board itself. This allows each board to store its own maintenance information that can be used at the manufacturing site for changing defective chips. Defects stored on the board itself allow the defects to be obtained independent of a position of a board within the emulator to simplify identification of the faulty resource.
67 Citations
28 Claims
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1. A method of loading a design into a hardware emulator, comprising:
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storing faults, associated with components on an emulator board, in memory on the emulator board, the stored faults indicating defective or unusable resources on the emulator board; compiling the design to be emulated by avoiding use of components with the faults by accessing the stored faults during compilation; and loading the compiled design into the emulator. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. An emulator for emulating a user design, comprising:
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multiple printed circuit boards having programmable logic thereon for emulating the user design in hardware; and at least one non-volatile memory located on one of the printed circuit boards in the emulator for storing faults locally on the circuit board; wherein the faults indicate malfunctioning components on the circuit board and wherein the faults are accessible for use in compilation of the user design. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. An emulator comprising:
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means for storing faults associated with components on an emulator board in the emulator, wherein the stored faults indicate defective or unusable resources on the emulator board; and means for compiling the design to be emulated by reading the stored faults and avoiding the use of components with the faults. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18)
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19. A computer-readable storage storing instructions thereon for executing a method of loading a design into a hardware emulator, the method comprising:
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storing faults, associated with components on an emulator board, in memory on the emulator board, the stored faults indicating defective or unusable resources on the emulator board; compiling the design to be emulated by avoiding use of components with the faults by accessing the stored faults during compilation; and loading the compiled design into the emulator. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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Specification