Patent ID: 7096434

Claim:
A method in a data processing system of associating a mapping function with a configuration construct of a digital design defined by one or more hardware description language (HDL) files, said method comprising: in an HDL statement within one of one or more HDL flies representing a digital design, specifying a configuration latch within a design entity forming at least a portion of the digital design; in the one or more HDL files, specifying a Dial defining a relationship between each of a plurality of Dial input values of the Dial and a respective one of a plurality of different Dial output values of the Dial; in the one or more HDL files, including a statement that instantiates an instance of said Dial in association with said configuration latch such that a one-to-one correspondence exists between a configuration value contained within said configuration latch and a Dial input value of said instance of said Dial; and in the one or more HDL files, including a statement associating the Dial with said mapping function that applies a selected transformation to Dial input values read from or written to said instance of said Dial wherein the selected transformation is selected from a set of transformations consisting of a mathematical transformation, logical transformation, a shift and generation of pseudo-random value.