Patent ID: 8645895

Claim:
A method of checking a behaviour of a circuit in a design stage that is prior to realising a physical layout of the circuit by using a computerised system, the method comprising the steps providing parameterised data in a database, the parameterised data describing the behaviour of said circuit in the design stage during electrostatic discharge and each circuit component used in the circuit is associated with a set of said parameterised data; identifying circuit components in a signal path of the circuit for testing electrostatic discharge thereof by using parameterised circuit data specifying the electrical properties of the circuit components used in the circuit and their connections to each other; retrieving the parameterised data associated with the identified circuit components from the database; determining, by the computerised system, at least one parameter value for the signal path, the at least one parameter value characterising the behaviour of said circuit during electrostatic discharge by using the associated parameterised data; and combining several circuit components to a single discharge protection component and associating said single discharge protection component with the parameterised data stored in the database for said single discharge protection component.