Patent ID: 8136077
Filing Date: 2012-03-13
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A machine-implemented method for designing an integrated circuit, the method comprising: providing a circuit netlist having a subset of cells, signals, pins, and connections between pins; providing an implementation architecture to implement the circuit netlist, the implementation architecture having resources including a subset of cell sites, pin sites, and routing resources; providing implementation possibilities for implementing the circuit netlist as a list of possible paths, each path including a sequence of connected resources; providing an attribute and corresponding value for each path in the list of possible paths; removing paths from the list of possible paths that make the circuit implementation invalid; committing paths to remain in the list of possible paths if such paths are required for making the circuit implementation valid; identifying an uncommitted path from the list of possible paths with a worst-case value for the attribute and removing that path from the list of possible paths; and iteratively removing, committing and identifying paths until all paths are committed by using a computer; wherein a valid circuit implementation is specified by the following conditions: