Abstract:
A computer readable medium is arranged to record a circuit description having a description of a function of the circuit module and an interface description provided by distinguishing sets of possible signal values each output terminal may take on plural time points at each pattern and adding an identifier to each of said sets for defining said set and representing said function of said hardware description with the set of said identifiers on a temporal order.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    The present invention relates to a technology of correctly defining a specification of an interface of a circuit module and facilitating connection between circuit modules with the defined specification in an integrated circuit system or a digital system having plural circuit modules connected therewith.  
           [0002]    Improvement of integration level of an LSI results in implementing a system LSI in which almost of the system is mounted on a chip. In designing such a large-scale system LSI, by combining ready-made circuit modules with one another, it is possible to reduce the designing cost and the man-month for design work. One of the most significant subjects in this type of designing method is how to reuse those ready-made circuit modules. Many proposals have been made to this subject and some of them have been already realized. For example, by describing the read-made logic circuit in a hardware description language to be logically synthesized, the resulting circuit module does not depend on an LSI manufacturing process. Further, the trial for making the interface standards for connection circuit modules is made by the standardizing association called VSIA (Virtual Socket Interface Alliance).  
           [0003]    In the meantime, a trial for facilitating connection of read-made logical circuits, that is, automatically synthesizing a connection circuit between the logical circuits has been described in Roberto Passerone et al. “Automatic Synthesis of Interfaces between Incompatible Protocols”, pages 8 to 13, at the 35th Design Automation Conference or Andrew Seawright et al. “Synthesis from Production-Based Specifications”, pages 194 to 199, at the 29th Design Automation Conference.  
           [0004]    These proposals have described the method of describing an interface operation of a logical circuit in a special language and automatically synthesizing a connection circuit from the description. The trial for describing the interface itself has been proposed in J. A. Nestor et al. “Behavioral Synthesis with Interfaces”, pages 112 to 115, at the International Conference on Computer Aided Design in 1986 or Gaetano Borriello et al. “Synthesis and Optimization of Interface Transducer Logic”, pages 274 to 277, at the International Conference on Computer Aided Design in 1987.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0005]    In order to reuse ready-made circuit modules, the documents to which the designer has traditionally referred are only the manual about one circuit module and the hardware description of the circuit module. The manual has described the specification of the circuit module, that is, the function and the operation of the circuit module explained with reference to the timing charts or the like. The manual, however, merely illustrates the operations described on the charts and one example of behavior of an interface appearing in using a certain function. It does not exhaustively describe all the operations of the circuit module. Further, since the operation is represented only on the chart, in order to verify the feasibility to connect the circuit with the circuit module to be reused, the designer is required to verify if the waveform described on the chart is regenerated.  
           [0006]    This verification has been done by the manual work, so that it needs lots of designing steps. Hence, if the designer misunderstand the timing chart, the proper circuit cannot be designed. To avoid this disadvantage, the designer has to correctly understand the manual and in some cases analyze the hardware description for grasping the operation.  
           [0007]    According to an aspect of the invention, a computer readable medium is arranged to store a structure and an operation description of a conventional circuit module, distinguish a set of signal values to be taken on a specific time at each I/O terminal relevant to each function of the circuit module by means of identifiers for signals, and at a time store a description about an interface of each function of the hardware description with the combination of the identifiers on a temporal order.  
           [0008]    According to another aspect of the invention, a verifying method is executed to verify if two circuit modules are to be connected by doing comparison of a slip of each time point on which a given event takes place between the two circuit modules by using the information stored in the computer readable medium.  
           [0009]    According to another aspect of the invention, a method is executed to synthesize a signal pattern by following change of a signal appearing at the I/O terminal of the circuit module on the temporal order by using the information stored in the computer readable medium. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0010]    [0010]FIG. 1 is an explanatory view showing a summary of the invention;  
         [0011]    [0011]FIG. 2 is an explanatory view showing a method of defining an interface specification according to an embodiment of the invention;  
         [0012]    [0012]FIG. 3 is an explanatory table showing a data structure recorded on a computer readable medium in FIG. 2;  
         [0013]    [0013]FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a system for determining feasibility to connect two logical circuits by using an interface definition description;  
         [0014]    [0014]FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a connection circuit for connecting two logical circuits with each other to which the present invention may apply;  
         [0015]    [0015]FIG. 6 is a chart showing an example of signal sequences of one function in an interface;  
         [0016]    [0016]FIG. 7 is a view showing an example of FIG. 6 through a state transition graph;  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 8 is an explanatory view showing an example of a state transition graph;  
         [0018]    [0018]FIG. 9 is an explanatory view showing another example of a state transition graph;  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing a system for generating a signal pattern for simulation to be given to an interface based on an interface definition description;  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 11 is a view showing another embodiment of the invention in which the logical circuit provides plural interface definition descriptions; and  
         [0021]    [0021]FIG. 12 is a table showing an expansion of the data structure shown in FIG. 3. 
     
    
     DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS  
       [0022]    [0022]FIG. 1 is a view for describing the summary of the invention in which the interface specification definition of the circuit module is stored on a storage medium. In FIG. 1, consider a logical circuit  101  provided with an I/O signal  102 . Typically, the structure or the operation of this logical circuit is described using a hardware description language. The described data ( 104 ) is stored in a computer readable medium and then is used as save or design data. Or, the electronic storage medium itself may be sold as a commercial good. In FIG. 1, the interface definition description  213  shown in FIG. 2 is stored as data ( 105 ) on the computer readable medium  103  together with the data containing the description of the structure or the operation of the logical circuit.  
         [0023]    [0023]FIG. 2 is a view for describing the detail of the interface definition description as shown in FIG. 1. In FIG. 2, a logical circuit  201  includes a plurality of I/O signals and functions (for example,  204  to  210 ) as indicated by  203 . Concretely, these functions may be used as signal sequences as indicated by  211 .  
         [0024]    The function  203  of the logical circuit  201  is represented as the information indicated by  213 . At first, the information  213  includes definition information  214  about the I/O signal interface  202  contained in the logical circuit  201 . This definition information represents a bit width and a distinction of input and output of each terminal, for example. Then, the information further includes a definition  215  of signal values. The definition includes sets of possible values of those signals to which symbols are added respectively. In a synchronous logical circuit, as shown by  211 , the other signals are changed according to one period of a clock signal clk. Then, a symbol may be defined to the set of the signals of one period. For example, a symbol RDBHW is defined to the combination of the signals indicated by  212 . The information  213  includes definition for functions  216  as the next definition. The definition of functions is defined by the sequence of the symbols that are defined to the signal sequence about each of the functions  204  to  210  provided in the logical circuit  201 . For example, the signal sequence indicated by  211  is represented as the sequence “NOP, NOP, RDBHW, RDBHW, RDBHW, RDBH, NOP”. In actual, if two or more signal sequences may be provided for one function, one function is defined as a set of symbol sequences. For this signal sequence, a generic name of the function is defined. The signal sequence for representing the function is a sequence of all possible signal sequences as the operation of the function. For example, in a case that no shortage takes place if the first NOP and the last NOP of the sequence indicated by  211  exist, the function indicated by  211  is defined as “RDBHW, RDBHW, RDBHW, RDBH”. The last definition is general information definition  217 . This definition corresponds to a definition of mutual relation between the definitions of functions defined by  216 . For example, when the logical circuit  201  is started, the function to be necessarily done at first and the function that cannot be continuously used are defined by using the names defined by the definition of functions.  
         [0025]    The definitions  214  to  217 , that is, the information about terminal definition, the definition of signal values, the definition of functions, and the general information definition represent the corresponding relation between the functions of the logical circuit and the signal sequence of the I/O interface signal corresponding to the function. This representation is called interface definition description.  
         [0026]    [0026]FIG. 3 is an explanatory view showing the data structure of an interface definition description data  213  in a computer readable storage medium.  
         [0027]    At first, the name  301  of the interface to be described is stored. Next, the data for representing three types of definitions including a terminal name, a signal width (number of signal lines) and a signal attribute of input or output about each of the terminals provided in the interface is stored as a combination. The number of the combination data is equal to the number of the terminals. At last, the data for representing the terminal symbol is stored. Next, the data  303  for representing the definition of signal values is provided. In the data  303 , the set of possible logical values (0, 1, uncertain, or the like) to be taken by the terminal that is described in  302  and the identifiers for the set are represented as a combination. In the example shown in FIG. 3, two identifiers may be provided, that is, “identifiers of signal values” and “clipped names”. The identifier of the signal value is represented by the meaningful word and the range of such words and the clipped name is made up of a short number of characters, for example, one or two characters. The same number of the logical values as the number of the terminal names described by  302  are listed. The definitions of signal values have the terminal symbols at the tail when they are stored.  
         [0028]    Next, the definition of function  304  is represented by the identifier of the function, the identifiers of signal values composed by storing the corresponding signal sequence to the function in  303 , or the clipped names. Further, the symbols for representing the repetition of the definition of the signal values or the selection of the identifiers are stored as well. Those data items are stored in “signal, signal name”. The signal name used herein employs the following symbols.  
         [0029]    (1) “*” is a symbol that signifies 0 or more to infinite repetitions of identifiers of signal values. For example, if “A B*C” is stored, “A C, ABC, ABBC, ABBBC” may be represented.  
         [0030]    (2) “(” or “)” is a symbol that treats a sequence of definitions of signal values laid between “(” and “)” at a batch like the mathematical expression. For example, if “A(B C)*” is stored, it represents “A, A B C, A B C B C”.  
         [0031]    (3) “&lt;” or “&gt;” is a symbol that represents the case that a sequence of definition of signal values laid between “&lt;” and “&gt;” exists or the case that no sequence exists. For example, if “A&lt;B&gt;C” is stored, it represents “A C, A B C”.  
         [0032]    (4) “[”, “|” or “]”: Of the sequences of the definitions of signal values laid between “[” and “]”, either one of the sequences delimited by “|” is represented by those symbols. For example, if “A [B|C] D” is stored, it represents “A B D, A C D”.  
         [0033]    The defined function exactly represents the change of an interface signal about the functions of the subject logical circuit such as “reading data” and “writing data”. Since the defined signal sequence has a corresponding length to each function, the last item of the definition stores the terminal symbol.  
         [0034]    The last item  305  means the general information definition. The possible sequences of the functions defined in  304  are represented by using the definition for functions defined in  304  and the same symbols as those used in  305  and then are stored. Since the data is also a variable-length data, the terminal symbol is stored in the tail of the data. The general information definition is stored as “A [B|C]*” if the function A to be executed once at the power-up of the circuit and the other functions B and C exist. If any limitation for execution exists between the functions A and B or if the function A is inevitably followed by the function C, then followed by the function B, the sequence of “A C B” is stored.  
         [0035]    The following operations can be easily realized from the data structure stored in the computer readable medium and the data itself.  
         [0036]    (1) Any signal sequence to be taken by the signal composing the interface represented by the data structure may be generated. This makes it possible to make sure that a test pattern appearing in executing the logical simulation by using the computer or the result of the logical simulation is correct and make sure that any function is regenerated when the logical simulation is executed on any test pattern. Later, the embodiment for realizing this will be described with reference to FIG. 10.  
         [0037]    (2) It is determined if the connection circuit for connecting two logical circuits may be realized from this data structure. The embodiment for realizing this will be described with reference to FIG. 4.  
         [0038]    (3) This data structure makes it possible to automatically generate the connection circuit for connecting two logical circuits with each other.  
         [0039]    [0039]FIG. 11 is an explanatory view showing the second embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, a logical circuit  1101  includes I/O interface groups ( 1102  to  1104 ). In correspondence with each I/O interface group, the computer readable medium  1105  stores a logical circuit structure, an operation description  1106  and an interface definition descriptions  1107  to  1109 , each of which corresponds to each I/O interface group.  
         [0040]    The expanded data structure will be described with reference to FIG. 12. FIG. 12 is an expansion of the data structure shown in FIG. 3. In FIG. 12, 301 to  303  and  305  have the same structure as the data structure shown in FIG. 3.  
         [0041]    [0041] 1201  denotes a definition of expanded functions. It has the same structure as that of  304  except that the data component  1202  stores a signal name, a condition name, and a procedure name.  
         [0042]    [0042] 1203  denotes a definition of constants. It consists of a constant definition name, a constant type identifier and a constant. The constant type identifier belongs to an I type for representing an integer or a T type for representing a time.  
         [0043]    [0043] 1204  denotes a definition of variables. It consists of a variable definition name, a variable type identifier, and a variable initial value. This variable type identifier is the same as the constant type identifier.  
         [0044]    [0044] 1205  denotes a definition of conditions. It consists of a definition of conditions, a variable name, a constant name, an operational symbol name or a component  1206  composed of an operational name, and a terminal symbol.  
         [0045]    [0045] 1207  denotes a definition of procedures. It consists of a procedure definition name, a variable name, a constant name, an operation symbol name or a component  1208  composed of an operation name, and a terminal symbol.  
         [0046]    For example, the expanded data structure has:  
         [0047]    as a constant definition  
         [0048]    a constant name of UPPER, a type of I and a constant value of 3,  
         [0049]    as a variable definition  
         [0050]    a variable name of cnt, a type of I and an initial value of 0,  
         [0051]    as a definition for functions  
         [0052]    a function identifier of X,  1202  of A (pBt)*, and “terminal symbol”, wherein X denotes a definition for functions, A and B denote signal names, p denotes an identifier of a condition, and t denotes an identifier of a procedure.  
         [0053]    as a definition of conditions  
         [0054]    an identifier of a certain condition of p,  1206  of cnt=cnt+1, and “terminal symbol”, in which the data structure stored as above represents as the function X a signal sequence having only three Bs after A, that is, “A, AB, ABB, ABBB”,  
         [0055]    as another example,  
         [0056]    as definition of variables,  
         [0057]    an identifier for variables of tx, a type of T and an initial value of 0,  
         [0058]    as a definition for functions,  
         [0059]    an identifier for dunctions of Y,  1202  of A t 2  and B*p 2 ,  
         [0060]    as a definition of conditions,  
         [0061]    an identifier of conditions of ps and  1206  of (now−tx)&lt;100 ms  
         [0062]    as a definition of procedures,  
         [0063]    a procedure identifier of t 2  and  1208  of tx=now, in which the data structure stored as above signifies a signal sequence consisting of a repetition of B within an interval of 100 ms after A as the function Y, “now” denotes the current time and “ms” denotes a time unit.  
         [0064]    [0064]FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a system for determining if two logical circuits are to be connected by using the interface definition description according to the present invention. This system is inputted with the interface definition descriptions IF-A ( 401 ) and IF-B ( 404 ) of the two logical circuits to be connected. Further, the system is also inputted with a data file  407  in which how the functions defined in the interface definition descriptions correspond to each other is described. Then, the system serves to determine if the logical circuit for connecting two interfaces with each other may be composed from the inputted data. As shown in FIG. 5, the logical circuit for connecting the interfaces with each other indicates a circuit such as a connection circuit  502  for connecting a logical circuit  501  having an interface IF-A with a logical circuit  503  having an interface IF-B.  
         [0065]    Before describing the system shown in FIG. 4, the description will be oriented to the method for calculating an arrival step of the data obtained by analyzing the interface definition description with reference to FIGS.  6  to  9 . The arrival step of the data indicates a value for representing which of the cycles after the start of the process the effective data is transmitted or received with regard to a certain function of the interface.  
         [0066]    [0066]FIG. 6 is a timing chart showing one function of a certain interface. The signal in this interface is synchronous to the rise of a clock signal clk. Two cycles  601  and  602  are null and contains a definition of a signal value called NOP. The function  606  called READ starts from  603  and terminates at  605 . In the start cycle  603 , an enable signal en, a wait signal wait, and an address value adr are asserted. In the cycle  605 , the wait signal wait is negated, so that the effective data  607  on the data line data appears. The state ( 603 ,  604 ) that the enable signal en is asserted and the wait signal wait is also asserted is assumed as the definition name of the signal value called RDW. The state  605  that the wait signal wait is negated and the effective data on the data line data appears is assumed as the definition name of the signal value called RD. The function READ may be represented as the sequence of the definition names of signal values called “RDW RDW RD”.  
         [0067]    When the sequence of the identifiers of signal values is represented by a state transition graph, the graph is made to be the view shown in FIG. 7. This state transition graph has a start point S ( 701 ) and an end point E ( 704 ) and the arcs of the graph correspond to the identifiers of signal values. The example “RDW RDW RD” is represented so that the first RDW is a transition arc from  701  to  702 , the second RDW is a transition arc from  702  to  703 , and the last RD is a transition arc from  703  to  704 . In this example, the effective data ( 607  in FIG. 6) appears at the third cycle, so that the arrival step is  3 .  
         [0068]    However, if the actual circuit has a specification that the state of RDW is repeated as long as the wait signal wait is asserted, the actual operation is considered from the case of only “RD” where no wait signal wait is asserted to the case of infinitely continuing RDW. In such a case, it is impossible to enumerate all the cases. Hence, this operation is represented by using a repetition symbol “*”. Concretely, by describing the operation as “RDW*RD”, it is possible to represent a signal sequence that RD follows the continuous sequence of 0 or more RDWs. By representing this example by the state transition graph, the resulting view is made to be the graph shown in FIG. 8. Two transition arcs RDW and RD come out of the start point S ( 801 ). Since the RDW returns to the start point S again, 0 or more or infinite repetitions of RDW are represented. The arrival step in this case ranges from 1 to infinity, which may be represented as the interval [0, ∞].  
         [0069]    The state transition shown in FIG. 9 represents that RD appears at the third or the fifth cycle. The sequence of the identifiers of signal values in this case may be described as “(RDW RDW RD)|(RDW RDW RDW RDW RD)” by using the OR symbol “|” or represented as “RDW RDW&lt;RDW RDW? RD” by using the symbol “&lt;&gt;” for indicating the presence or the absence. The arrival step in this case may be represented as a set called (3, 5).  
         [0070]    As described above, by creating the state transition graph from the sequence of the identifiers of signal values and calculating the number of arcs from the start point to a specific arc on the graph, it is possible to calculate the value of the arrival step. Based on this principle, the operation of the system for verifying the feasibility to connect two circuits of FIG. 4 will be described.  
         [0071]    In FIG. 4, 401 and  404  denote a file for storing an interface definition description for a logical circuit to be connected. At  402  and  405 , these files are read. At  403  and  406 , the state transition graph is created. At  409  and  410 , each arrival step is calculated. In connecting two logical circuits before calculating the arrival step, an operation is executed to input a data file  407  in which the corresponding relation between the functions (for example, one function for outputting the data and the other function for inputting the data) is described. Then, the portions where the effective data appears about the function to be analyzed and the corresponding function are indicated to both of the arrival step calculating unit  409  and  410 . The calculated arrival steps are compared in the comparing unit  411  of the arrival periods. The compared result is outputted from an output unit  412  of the compared result to a display unit  413  or a file  414 .  
         [0072]    In the corresponding relation of the functions specified by the file  407  of the logical circuit to be connected, as a premise of comparison, the transfer of the data in which one is for output and the other is for input is established.  
         [0073]    The comparison in the comparing unit  411  of the arrival periods is divided into two stages. At the first stage, it is checked if the ranges of both of the arrival steps are overlapped with each other. If overlapped, the data may be transferred on the same timing. If not overlapped, the operation goes to the second stage. At the second stage, it is checked if the range on the data input side is larger than the range on the data output side, that is, the former is later than the latter. If the former is later than the latter, a circuit for temporarily holding data such as latch in a connection circuit is provided for correctly transferring the data. By doing the above comparison, it is determined if the proper connection is made possible. The output unit  412  of the compared result serves to output whether or not the ranges are overlapped at the first stage and whether or not the condition is met at the second stage to a display unit  413  or a file  414 . If overlapped at the first stage, this result indicates that the connection circuit can be realized without having to provide a data buffer. If the condition is met at the second stage, it indicates that the connection circuit that needs a data buffer can be realized. If the condition is not met at the second stage, it indicates that the connection circuit cannot be realized.  
         [0074]    By using the system for verifying the feasibility to connect the two circuits as shown in FIG. 4, it is possible to verify if the connection circuit can be realized before designing the connection circuit between any of the logical circuits.  
         [0075]    [0075]FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing a system for automatically generating a signal pattern for simulation to be given to an interface, based on the definition description of the interface. Like the process of determining the feasibility, the process is executed to generate a state transition graph from the definition description of the interface. The file  1001  for saving the definition description of the interface is read by an interface description analyzing unit  1002 . Then, the state transition graph is generated by the interface state generating unit  1003 . In generating the simulation pattern, a file  1004 , in which the function of the interface whose pattern is to be generated, is described by a function input unit  1005 . A state trace unit  1006  operates to trace the state transition graph for the specified function so as to numerate the identifiers of signal values on a passage from a start point (for example,  701  shown in FIG. 7) to an end point (for example,  704  shown in FIG. 7) in sequence. Based on the numerated sequence, a signal waveform output unit  1007  operates to output to a display unit  1008  or a file  1009  the corresponding waveforms to the identifiers of signal values with a logical value of each terminal in the definition of signal values as a simulation pattern.  
         [0076]    The foregoing process makes it possible to arrange the system for generating a signal pattern for simulation from an interface definition description.  
         [0077]    The foregoing embodiments of the present invention makes it possible to describe the interface operation of the read-made logical circuit block using the present invention and store the description in a computer readable storage medium. Further, they make it possible to distribute the stored data in combination with the hardware description of the logical circuit block, generate a signal sequence on a terminal for composing the interface from the data, display the signal sequence, or utilize it as a test pattern for a logical simulation. Moreover, by using the interface description of the two logical circuits to be connected, it is possible to verify if the two logical circuits are to be connected, which leads to reducing the conventionally problematic verifying work done by a designer that has been conventionally required in using the ready-made circuits.