Patent ID: 7484186

Claim:
A method for designing a system LSI comprising the steps of: (a) dividing a function described in an algorithm description into a hardware function part for configuring a processor and a software function part for creating an application program running on the processor; (b)(i) if an instruction needed for the divided hardware function part exists in an instruction set library stored in a database, extracting a corresponding instruction description from the instruction set library including therein instruction descriptions defining execution definition sections, or (b)(ii) if the instruction does not exist in the instruction set library, defining a new instruction description as a new member stored in the instruction set library to which the new instruction description corresponding to the instruction is added; (c) extracting, from a behavior function library storing therein functional blocks defining contents of processings for execution definition sections, a behavior function description corresponding to the instruction description or the new instruction description; and (d) synthesizing a processor description by behavior synthesis to obtain an RTL description, the instruction description or the new instruction description and the behavior instruction description being installed into the processor description, wherein the database is open to a user of the method while inhibiting another user of the method from accessing some of contents of at least one of the behavior function description and the instruction description stored in the database.