Patent ID: 7676718

Claim:
A design support apparatus comprising: an acquiring unit configured to acquire, from information on a semiconductor integrated circuit, information on a first circuit element that captures a data signal output from a source circuit element within the semiconductor integrated circuit and to acquire information on the source circuit element based on a result of a timing analysis on the semiconductor integrated circuit; a replacing unit configured to replace, based on a layout of the semiconductor integrated circuit, the information on the first circuit element with information on a test circuit that includes: the first circuit element; a second circuit element configured to capture a data signal output from the source circuit element; a delay element configured to delay operation timing of the second circuit element compared to operation timing of the first circuit element; a comparing circuit configured to compare a value of the data signal captured by the first circuit element with a value of the data signal captured by the second circuit element; and a collecting circuit configured to collect a result of comparison by the comparing circuit; and an executing unit configured to read a net list of the semiconductor integrated circuit where the information on the first circuit element is replaced with the information on the test circuit and to execute a predetermined test.