G06F2119/12

MARGIN CALIBRATION METHOD AND MARGIN CALIBRATION SYSTEM FOR STATIC TIMING ANALYSIS
20230222277 · 2023-07-13 ·

A margin correction method and a margin correction system for static timing analysis are provided. The margin calibration method includes: measuring dies on a to-be-tested chip with a target circuit to obtain performance data records; obtaining simulation data records for simulating performances of the dies; executing a static timing analysis (STA) tool to obtain timing analysis results; statistically calculating a simulation process corner based on the timing analysis results; obtaining a measurement process corner based on the performance data records; establishing a statistical model that defines a margin as a difference between the measurement process corner and the simulation process corner; substituting the timing analysis results and the measurement process corner into the statistical model and execute a model fitting algorithm, for fitting the statistical model to a target model to obtain the margin; and obtaining calibrated timing analysis results.

Coverage based microelectronic circuit, and method for providing a design of a microelectronic circuit
11699012 · 2023-07-11 · ·

Microelectronic circuit com-prises a plurality of logic units and register circuits, arranged into a plu-rality of processing paths, and a plu-rality of monitoring units associated with respective ones of said processing paths. Each of said monitoring units is configured to produce an observation signal as a response to anomalous opera-tion of the respective processing path. Each of said plurality of logic units belongs to one of a plurality of delay classes according to an amount of delay that it is likely to generate. Said de-lay classes comprise first, second, and third classes, of which the first class covers logic units that are likely to generate longest delays, the second class covers logic units that are likely to generate shorter delays than said first class, and the third class covers logic units that are likely to generate shorter delays than said second class. At least some of said plurality of pro-cessing paths comprise logic units be-longing to said second class but are without monitoring units. At least some of said plurality of processing paths comprise logic units belonging to said third class but have monitoring units associated with them.

Method and system for reducing migration errors

A method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes reducing errors in a migration of a first netlist to a second netlist, the first netlist corresponding to a first semiconductor process technology (SPT), the second first netlist corresponding to a second SPT, the first and second netlists each representing a same circuit design, the reducing errors including: inspecting a timing constraint list corresponding to the second netlist for addition candidates; generating a first version of the second netlist having a first number of comparison points relative to a logic equivalence check (LEC) context, the first number of comparison points being based on the addition candidates; performing a LEC between the first netlist and the first version of the second netlist, thereby identifying migration errors; and revising the second netlist to reduce the migration errors, thereby resulting in a second version of the second netlist.

STATIC VOLTAGE DROP (SIR) VIOLATION PREDICTION SYSTEMS AND METHODS

Systems and methods are provided for predicting static voltage (SIR) drop violations in a clock-tree synthesis (CTS) layout before routing is performed on the CTS layout. A static voltage (SIR) drop violation prediction system includes SIR drop violation prediction circuitry. The SIR drop violation prediction circuitry receives CTS data associated with a CTS layout. The SIR drop violation prediction circuitry inspects the CTS layout data associated with the CTS layout, and the CTS layout data may include data associated with a plurality of regions of the CTS layout, which may be inspected on a region-by-region basis. The SIR drop violation prediction circuitry predicts whether one or more SIR drop violations would be present in the CTS layout due to a subsequent routing of the CTS layout.

METHOD FOR OPTIMIZING CIRCUIT TIMING BASED ON FLEXIBLE REGISTER TIMING LIBRARY
20230214567 · 2023-07-06 ·

Disclosed in the present invention is a method for optimizing circuit timing based on a flexible register timing library. First, registers are simulated respectively in a case of a plurality of groups of an input signal conversion time, a clock signal conversion time, and a register load capacitance, corresponding actual propagation delays at this time are obtained by changing setup slack and hold slack of the registers, and actual propagation delays of the registers under specific input signal conversion time, clock signal conversion time, register load capacitances, setup slack, and hold slack are obtained through linear interpolation, to establish a flexible register timing library; and then static timing analysis is performed on all register paths in a circuit by using the library, a minimum clock cycle under a condition of satisfying that a setup time margin and a hold time margin are both greater than zero is found by changing the setup slack and hold slack of the registers, thereby improving the performance of the circuit without changing the design of the circuit and without increasing the area overheads of the circuit.

Circuit design assistance system and computer readable medium
11550978 · 2023-01-10 · ·

A detection unit (231) detects, based on synthesis result data obtained by logic synthesis on design data of a target circuit, a predicted place where a glitch is predicted to occur in the target circuit. An insertion unit (232) inserts a glitch removal circuit in an output side of the predicted place by making a change to at least one of the synthesis result data and the design data.

SYSTEM FOR COLLABORATIVE HARDWARE RTL LOGIC TIMING DEBUG IN INTEGRATED CIRCUIT DESIGNS

A method, programming product, and/or system is disclosed for identifying flaws in integrated circuits, e.g., processors, that includes: selecting from a list of a plurality of timing issues in an integrated circuit, where each timing issue on the list is represented by one or more VHDL code lines, a particular timing issue to investigate; tracing back the selected one or more VHDL code lines, corresponding to the selected particular timing issue to investigate, to one or more selected physical design VHDL (PD-VHDL) code lines; logically navigating across the one or more selected PD-VHDL code lines to one or more corresponding normalized VHDL (NVDHL) code lines; and tracing back the one or more corresponding NHVDL code lines to one or more short-hand VHDL (SVHDL) code lines to identify one or more code lines, written by a code designer, responsible for the particular timing issue being investigated.

SIMULATION SYSTEM AND METHOD THEREOF
20230214565 · 2023-07-06 ·

A simulation system and a method thereof are disclosed. In the simulation system, a system power transmission model, and analog current time-domain model and digital current time-domain model are connected to obtain power noise generated after a supply current is obtained; jitter time-domain information of each interface connection circuit model under the power noise is obtained based on transmission of a clock signal outputted from a phase lock loop, by a simulation program; next, a voltage step response of a voltage measurement point when a clock terminal of each interface connection circuit model receives an ideal signal, is simulated by the simulation program to generate a first voltage time-domain model; a system waveform is generated based on the jitter time-domain information of each interface connection circuit model under the power noise, the first voltage time-domain model and data transmission, thereby obtaining an eye diagram and time-domain jitter distribution.

Multi-gated I/O system, semiconductor device including and method for generating gating signals for same

A method of generating multiple gating signals for a multi-gated input/output (I/O) system. The system includes an output level shifter and an output driver which are coupled in series between an output node of a core circuit and an external terminal of a corresponding system. The method includes: generating first and second gating signals having corresponding first and second waveforms, the first waveform transitioning from a non-enabling state to an enabling state before the second waveform transitions from the non-enabling state to the enabling state; receiving the first gating signal at the output level shifter; and receiving the second gating signal at the output driver.

Computer-readable recording medium storing analysis program, analysis method, and analysis device
11693054 · 2023-07-04 · ·

A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium stores an analysis program for causing a computer to execute a process including: reading circuit data; trying to generate test data for a delay fault to be targeted; analyzing whether an underkill is caused when the targeted delay fault results in a redundant fault; and presenting circuit modification locations to avoid the underkill, based on an analysis result, when the underkill is caused.