Method for controlling critical circuits in the design of integrated circuits
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsSamuel D. Naffziger, Wayne D. Kever
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Abstract
A method of providing critical circuits in a library of circuits, whereby such critical circuits allows designers to apply modifications to them in a controlled manner such that the changes are easy to implement and virtually guaranteed to be correct. The invention comprises a method of performing limited modifications to such critical circuits to alter its characteristics in a controlled manner, and thereafter checking the resulting modified circuit with a circuit simulator for conformance to predetermined specifications that have been assembled for this library critical circuit.
Claims14
A method of modifying selected predetermined circuits in the design of a very large scale integrated circuit chip having a large plurality of circuits and wherein the chip is designed using circuits from at least one library of predetermined circuits that can be incorporated into the chip, said method comprising:
- enabling limited modifications to the selected predetermined circuit to alter its characteristics in a controlled manner by altering the physical implementation of the circuit components on the silicon of the chip having the circuit, including one or more of selectively changing the wire widths and lengths between transistors, selectively changing the number of vias and contacts that are provided in the circuit, selectively changing the widths and lengths of the transistors while maintaining minimum aspect ratios between the width and length of each transistor, selectively changing the distances between transistors in the circuit;
- and,
- verifying the operational performance of the modified circuit using a detailed circuit simulator.
A method of modifying selected predetermined circuits in the design of a very large scale integrated circuit chip having a large plurality of circuits and wherein the chip is designed using circuits from at least one library of predetermined circuits that can incorporated into the chip, the predetermined circuits in the library having predetermined specifications regarding operational performance, said method comprising:
- performing limited modifications to the selected predetermined circuit to alter its characteristics in a controlled manner by altering the physical implementation of the circuit components on the silicon of the chip having the circuit, including one or more of selectively changing the wire widths and lengths between transistors, selectively changing the number of vias and contacts that are provided in the circuit, selectively changing the widths and lengths of the transistors while maintaining minimum aspect ratios between the width and length of each transistor, selectively changing the distances between transistors in the circuit;
- checking the modified circuit with a detailed circuit simulator for conformance to the predetermined specifications regarding operational performance;
- and,
- performing additional modifications to the selected predetermined circuit to further alter its characteristics in the event the checking revealed the operational performance of the circuit failed to conform to said predetermined specifications.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.