Patent ID: 7665044

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for identifying relevant input and output sources in an electronic circuit design of an integrated circuit, comprising: identifying one or more library files related to one or more pins of a cell; processing the one or more library files to determine whether at least one of the one or more pins in the electronic circuit design is to be used in input/output planning, wherein the one or more library files provide the cell or pin information about importance of the at least one of the one or more pins of the cell in the input/output planning, and the act of analyzing the cell or pin information is performed by at least one processor; populating, into rule data, one or more default rules combined with a result of the act of processing the one or more library files, in which the rule data comprises a first information about how the one or more pins are used in the input/output planning; identifying the relevant input and output sources in the electronic circuit design of the integrated circuit by determining whether the cell meets one or more class criteria based at least in part on the rule data; and displaying a result of the act of determining whether the cell meets one or more class criteria on a display apparatus or storing the result in a tangible computer usable storage medium.