Secure exchange of information in electronic design automation

#The technical field relates to electronic design automation. More particularly, the field relates to methods of secure exchange of information related to electronic design automation.

#Modern electronic systems including circuits are becoming increasingly complex. Thus, it is not surprising that it may require increasingly specialized skills and capabilities to design and manufacture these complex systems. As these skills and capabilities become more specialized, it may take the cooperative effort of engineers from a number of different entities to complete the engineering required to successfully design and manufacture such electronic systems. It is also possible that, in some cases, one entity will rely upon the specialized skills and capabilities of an outside organization (e.g., vendor) to meet a specific need.

#For example, these days it is common for electronic system designers to outsource the manufacturing or assembly of their electronic systems to other businesses that specialize in manufacturing. In these scenarios, entities may need a reliable and secure way for exchanging information related to electronic design automation (EDA) with their partner entities, but still maintain control over how much of their trade secrets, capabilities, skills and the like may be divulged to such partner entities.

#FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment of a system for secure exchange of information related to electronic design automation.

#FIG. 2 is a flow diagram describing one embodiment of a method for securing information related to electronic design automation.

#FIG. 3 is a flow diagram describing one embodiment of a method of securely processing information related to electronic design automation.

#The disclosed invention includes all novel and unobvious features and aspects of the embodiments of the system and methods described herein both alone in various combinations and sub-combinations thereof. The disclosed features and aspects of the embodiments can be used alone or in various novel and unobvious combinations and sub-combinations with one another.

#Although the operations of the disclosed methods are described in a particular, sequential order for convenient presentation, it should be understood that this manner of description encompasses rearrangements, unless a particular ordering is required by specific language set forth below. For example, operations described sequentially may in some cases be rearranged or performed concurrently. Moreover, for the sake of simplicity, the disclosed flow charts and block diagrams typically do not show the various ways in which particular methods can be used in conjunction with other methods. Additionally, the detailed description sometimes uses terms like “determine” to describe the disclosed methods. Such terms are high-level abstractions of the actual operations that are performed. The actual operations that correspond to these terms will vary depending on the particular implementation and are readily discernible by one of ordinary skill in the art.

#Some of the methods described herein can be implemented in software stored on a computer-readable medium and executed on a computer. Some of the disclosed methods, for example, can be implemented as part of an electronic design automation (EDA) tool. Such methods can be executed on a single computer or a networked computer. For clarity, only those aspects of the software germane to these disclosed methods are described; product details well known in the art are omitted. For the same reason, the computer hardware is not described in detail.