Fault support in an emulation environment

• US 9,026,423 B2
• Filed: 12/26/2013
• Issued: 05/05/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/08/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens Industry Software Inc. (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Mentor Graphics Corporation (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Durand, Eric, Reymond, Estelle, Fadel, John
• Primary Examiner(s): Kim, Eunhee
• Application Number:
  US14/141,235
• Publication Number:
  US 20140108865A1
• Time in Patent Office: 495 Days
• Field of Search: 703 23- 24, 703/28, 716/116
• US Class Current: 703/23
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0703 Error or fault processing not based on redundancy, i.e. by taking additional measures to deal with the error or fault not making use of redundancy in operation, in hardware, or in data representation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0766 Error or fault reporting or storing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/261 by simulating additional hardware, e.g. fault simulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines

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.

Claims

1. A computer-readable non-volatile storage having instructions thereon associated with loading a design into a hardware emulator, comprising:

storing faults, associated with components on an emulator board, in a database external to the emulator board and in memory on the emulator board, the stored faults indicating defective components on the emulator board;

compiling the design to be emulated by avoiding use of the components with the faults by accessing the stored faults in the database during compilation; and

loading the design into the emulator, wherein through the compilation, the defective components on the emulator board are not used.

2. The computer-readable non-volatile storage of claim 1, further including comparing the faults stored in the database to the faults in the memory and issuing an indication if they are different.

3. The computer-readable non-volatile storage of claim 1, wherein the memory is non-volatile memory and wherein storing faults on the emulator board includes running diagnostics on the emulator board to determine components with faults and wherein storing includes storing results of the diagnostics in the non-volatile memory on the emulator board.

4. The computer-readable non-volatile storage of claim 1, further including combining faults associated with multiple emulator boards and compiling the design based on the combined faults.

5. The computer-readable non-volatile storage of claim 1, further including storing faults on the emulator board including running diagnostics on the emulator board and storing results of the diagnostics in a non-volatile memory on the emulator board and also storing the results in the database.

6. The computer-readable non-volatile storage of claim 5, further including comparing the faults stored in the database to the faults stored in the non-volatile memory and issuing an error indication if they are different.

7. The computer-readable non-volatile storage of claim 1, further including storing a board serial number on the emulator board and checking the emulator board serial number prior to the loading of the design.

8. An emulator for emulating a user design, comprising:

multiple printed circuit boards having programmable logic thereon for emulating the user design in hardware; and

at least one memory located external to the printed circuit boards in the emulator and at least one memory on the emulator board for stating faults, the stored faults indicating defective components on the emulator boards;

a compiler that uses the stored faults in the memory in order to compile the design such that the defective components on the emulator boards are not used;

wherein the user design is designed to be loaded into the multiple printed circuit boards for emulation such that the defective components are not used.

9. The emulator of claim 8, further including memory within the emulator for storing a fault avoidance type that indicates how the stored faults affect use of components on other of the printed circuit boards that do not have faults.

10. The emulator of claim 8, further including a resource server coupled to the multiple printed circuit boards and a database, the resource server coupled to retrieve the faults.

11. The emulator of claim 8, further including a resource server coupled to the multiple circuit boards, the resource server checking a serial number of a selected one of the printed circuit board prior to downloading a design to the selected printed circuit board to ensure that the design is loaded on a correct printed circuit board.

12. The emulator of claim 8, further including a compiler that uses a fault avoidance type received from a user and the stored faults to compile the user design.

13. A computer-readable non-volatile storage device for executing a method associated with faults in a hardware emulator, the method comprising:

storing faults external to an emulator board, the faults indicating defective components on the emulator board;

receiving user input regarding a fault avoidance type, the fault avoidance type indicating how the faults on the emulator board affect use of a set of components on other emulator boards that do not have faults;

storing the faults in memory on the emulator board and compiling the design, wherein compiling further includes reading the faults stored external to the emulator board or the faults stored in the memory on the emulator board; and

loading a design into the emulator such that the defective components are not used and the set of components on the other emulator boards are not used.

14. The computer-readable non-volatile storage device of claim 13, further including comparing the faults stored external to the emulator board to the faults stored in the memory on the emulator board and issuing an indication if they are different.

15. The computer-readable non-volatile storage device of claim 13, further including running diagnostics on the emulator board to determine defective components.

16. The computer-readable non-volatile storage device of claim 13, wherein loading the design includes programming programmable logic circuits in order to emulate the design.

17. A computer-readable non-volatile storage having instructions thereon associated with loading a design into a hardware emulator, comprising:

storing faults, associated with components on an emulator board, in a database external to the emulator board and in memory on the emulator board, the stored faults indicating defective components on the emulator board;

compiling the design to be emulated by avoiding use of the components with the faults by accessing the stored faults during compilation;

loading the design into the emulator, wherein through the compilation, the defective components on the emulator board are not used; and

storing faults on the emulator board including running diagnostics on the emulator board and storing results of the diagnostics in a non-volatile memory on the emulator board and also storing the results in the database.

18. The computer-readable non-volatile storage of claim 17, further including comparing the faults stored in the database to the faults stored in the non-volatile memory and issuing an error indication if they are different.