Patent ID: 7685266

Claim:
A method executed by a workflow management system, the method comprising: receiving circuit design data; managing, by the workflow management system, execution of a plurality of tape-out tools processing the data describing a circuit design, wherein managing execution of the plurality of tape-out tools comprises: provisioning resources of a plurality of servers that execute the plurality of tape-out tools, wherein the provisioning is performed according to: a priority assigned to each tape-out tool; a priority assigned to each task performed by a tape-out tool; an amount of resources consumed through execution of a respective task assigned to a tape-out tool; an amount of time desired to perform an execution of a task; and current usage of resources by other tape-out tools; and re-provisioning the resources; tracking, by the workflow management system, an execution state of each of the plurality of tape-out tools during execution, wherein tracking the execution state of each of the plurality of tape-out tools during execution comprises; collecting data from the plurality of tape-out tools during execution; and standardizing the collected data into common metrics, wherein common metrics comprise an amount of time used and resources used to perform a task execution on a respective tape-out tool and; facilitating the output of mask data from the plurality of tape-out tools to create a physical mask and providing data describing the execution state of each of the plurality of tape-out tools to be output in a user interface; wherein the providing is performed simultaneously with the execution of the plurality of tape-out tools.