A method of estimating power consumption for a system on chip (SOC) includes simulating operation of a first sub-block to obtain power consumption information for the first sub-block including first activation information for a first IP block. The method further includes simulating operation of a second sub-block to obtain power consumption information for the second sub-block including second activation information for the first IP block and activation information for a plurality of second IP blocks. The method further includes determining a weighting factor for the first activation information for the first IP block, the second activation information for the first IP block and the activation information for each second IP block. The method further includes estimating power consumption for the SOC based on the first and second activation information for the first IP block, the activation information for at least one second IP block, and corresponding weighting factors.

A scan chain engine can determine a set number of EXTEST scan chains for the IP block and based on a predetermined maximum number of EXTEST wrapper cells per EXTEST scan chain. The scan chain engine iteratively executes partitioning on the IP block to generate a set of partitions. Each partition in the set of partitions has a number of EXTEST wrapper cells that does not exceed the maximum number of EXTEST wrapper cells per EXTEST scan chain. The scan chain engine selectively merges partitions of the set of partitions to form a set of populated partitions that each include an EXTEST wrapper cell. The number of partitions is equal to the set number of EXTEST scan chains for the IP block. The scan chain engine generates wire paths connecting EXTEST wrapper cells of each populated partition to construct the set number of EXTEST scan chains for the IP block.

An apparatus and method are described for a scalable testing agent. For example, one embodiment of a scalable test engine comprises: an input interface to receive commands and/or data from a processor core or an external test system, the commands and/or data to specify one or more test operations to be performed on one or more intellectual property (IP) blocks of a chip; a first circuit to establish communication with an IP block over an interconnect fabric, the first circuit to transmit the one or more test operations to the IP block responsive to the received commands and/or data, the IP block to process the test operations and generate results; and a second circuit to receive the results from the IP block over the interconnect fabric, the results to be provided from the second circuit to the processor core and/or the external test system for analysis.

Embodiments relate to designing of integrated circuits using generation and instantiation of circuit stencils. The circuit stencil represents an abstracted version of the circuit segment. The circuit stencils include collapsed versions of the connectivity information of components and nodes of the integrated circuit. The collapsed version of the connectivity information is generated by analyzing functionality of the circuit segment and removing or replacing at least one redundant component or node of the circuit segment without modifying the functionality. The circuit stencil is used for instantiating or referencing components into a second integrated circuit.

A system for creating protected functional descriptions of integrated circuits provides encrypted gate delay information preventing deduction of gate function from gate delay but allowing simulation of the integrated circuit with accurate propagation delay calculation. Individual gate delay values may be modified so that they obscure actual gate delays but total along a data propagation path to equal the actual cumulative gate delay along that data propagation path.

Systems and methods are disclosed for generation and testing of integrated circuit designs with point-to-point connections between modules. These may allow for the rapid design and testing (e.g. silicon testing) of processors and SoCs. For example, type parameterization may be used to generate point-to-point connections in a flexible manner. For example, a point-to-point connection between the source module and the sink module that includes one or more named wires specified by bundle type may be automatically generated based on using the bundle type as a type parameterization input. For example, these system and methods may be used to rapidly connect a custom processor design, including one or more IP cores, to a standard input/output shell for a SoC design to facilitate rapid silicon testing of the custom processor design.

A semiconductor device is provided. The semiconductor device includes a first hard macro; a second hard macro spaced apart from the first hard macro in a first direction by a first distance; a head cell disposed in a standard cell area between the first hard macro and the second hard macro, the head cell being configured to perform power gating of a power supply voltage provided to one from among the first hard macro and the second hard macro; a plurality of first ending cells disposed in the standard cell area adjacent to the first hard macro; and a plurality of second ending cells disposed in the standard cell area adjacent to the second hard macro, the head cell not overlapping the plurality of first ending cells and the plurality of second ending cells.

Exemplary systems, methods and computer-accessible mediums for encrypting at least one integrated circuit (IC) can include determining, using an interference graph, at least one location for a proposed insertion of at least one gate in or at the at least one IC, and inserting the gate(s) into the IC(s) at the location(s). The interference graph can be constructed based at least in part on an effect of the location(s) on at least one further location of the IC(s).

Various embodiments may include integrated circuits (ICs) and methods for designing an integrated circuit (IC), such as a system-on-chip (SOC). Embodiments include methods for planning and producing ICs without communication channels, also referred to as channel-less ICs. Embodiments may include overlay hard macros that support routing and communication design without dedicated communication channels being needed between functional hard macros, such as cores of a SOC. Various embodiments may include an IC in which one or more interconnect hard macros and wires connecting a first functional hard macro, a second functional hard macro and the one or more interconnect hard macros are located within a third functional hard macro. In some embodiments, no communication channel may be present between the first functional hard macro, the second functional hard macro, and the third functional hard macro.

A system and method for adding interface protection to an electronic design using parameters. The electronic design and interface protection scheme are defined as parameters. An interface protection model creates interface protection implementation parameters that describe the implementation details of the interface protection. A hardware description model uses the electronic design parameters and the interface protection implementation parameters to create a hardware description. The interface protection scheme can be a built-in protection scheme, a user defined scheme, a scheme that includes place holders that the user may define later, and a combination of the preceding. The interface protection scheme may contain components to help with the retiming of the description of hardware.