Register retiming and verification of an integrated circuit design
AssigneeAltera Corporation
InventorGordon Raymond Chiu
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A circuit design description may have registers and combinational gates. Circuit design computing equipment may perform register retiming on the circuit design description, whereby registers are moved across combinational gates, information about the register moves are recorded, and ultimately a modified circuit design description is created. The circuit design computing equipment may perform sequential equivalence checking to ensure that the circuit design description and the modified circuit design description are sequentially equivalent. To facilitate the sequential equivalence checking, the circuit design computing equipment may augment the two circuit design descriptions based on the information recorded during register retiming.
Claims23
A method for operating circuit design computing equipment to perform register retiming, verification, and configuration of an integrated circuit, comprising:
- with the circuit design computing equipment, receiving a first circuit design description having primary inputs, primary outputs, and a combinational gate having an output port;
- with the circuit design computing equipment, performing register retiming on the first circuit design description to create a second circuit design description having the primary inputs, the primary outputs, and the combinational gate;
- augmenting the first and second circuit design descriptions in preparation for performing sequential equivalence checking, wherein the augmented first and second circuit design descriptions each have an additional primary output that is coupled to the respective output port of the combinational gate;
- performing verification on the augmented first and second circuit design descriptions by checking sequential equivalence at the additional primary output of each of the augmented first and second circuit, design descriptions;
- generating configuration data based on the register retiming and the verification;
- and
- storing the configuration data in configuration memory of the integrated circuit.
A method for operating a circuit design tool implemented on computing equipment to perform register retiming and configuration of an integrated circuit device, comprising:
- receiving a first circuit design description that includes a register and a combinational gate, wherein the combinational gate in the first circuit design description has an input port and an output port;
- performing a register retiming operation on the first circuit design description to create a second circuit design description that includes a register and a combinational gate, wherein the combinational gate in the second circuit design description has an input port and an output port;
- inserting a first test port that is coupled to the output port of the combinational gate of the first circuit design description;
- inserting a second test port that is coupled to the output port of the combinational gate of the second circuit design description;
- checking sequential equivalence at the first and second test ports;
- generating configuration data based on the register retiming operation and sequential equivalence checking;
- and
- storing the configuration data in configuration memory of the integrated circuit device.
Non-transitory computer-readable storage media for compiling a first circuit design description, comprising instructions for:
- performing a retiming operation on the first circuit description, wherein the retiming operation moves a register across a combinational circuit to create a second circuit design description;
- creating a first primary output in the first circuit design description and a second primary output in the second circuit design description;
- connecting the first primary output to an output port of the combinational circuit in the first circuit design description;
- connecting the second primary output to the output port of the combinational circuit in the second circuit design description;
- performing sequential equivalence checking of the first and second primary outputs;
- and
- generating configuration data for configuring an integrated circuit die based on the retiming operation and the sequential equivalence checking.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.