Patent ID: 7398492

Claim:
A method to validate data used in a design of a semiconductor product, the method comprising the steps of: (a) reading a plurality of resources of an application set, the application set defining the semiconductor product in a partially fabricated state comprising a plurality of fabricated layers up to and including a first conductive layer; (b) reading a user specification that (i) is developed based upon the application set at the partially fabricated state and (ii) establishes at least one upper conductive layer added to the application set that completes the design of the semiconductor product; (c) allocating a new resource from the user specification to the design of the semiconductor product, said new resource having a plurality of parameters; (d) validating the allocation of the new resource to the semiconductor product against the resources of the application set; and (e) propagating the allocation of the new resource and the parameters throughout a description of the semiconductor product, wherein step (d) comprises the sub-step of validating that a name of the new resource is all of (i) unique, (ii) non-null and (iii) complies with at least one of (a) an industry naming convention, (b) a company naming convention and (c) a syntax.