Patent ID: 7996804

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving an initial netlist comprising components and connection paths among the components; identifying a skew group comprising a plurality of connection paths, including at least a first connection path and a second connection path, in the initial netlist; performing with a computing device the following steps, prior to placement of the components: identifying one or more skew-influencing features in a first connection path in the initial netlist that lack corresponding skew-influencing features in a second connection path in the initial netlist; generating a skew-corrected netlist, prior to placement of the components, by adding one or more equivalent logic components of the same type to the second connection path corresponding to those of the first connection path, such that all the connection paths in the skew group have equivalent logic components; identifying one or more driver pins or receiver pins in one or more of the connection paths in the skew group that lack equivalent driver pins or receiver pins in another one of the connection paths in the skew group, and adding the equivalent driver pins or receiver pins until all the connection paths in the skew group have equivalent driver pins and receiver pins and equivalent fanouts; and outputting the skew-corrected netlist; performing with the computing device the following steps after placement of the components in the skew-corrected netlist: identifying one or more path fragments of one of the connection paths in the skew group that lack equivalent path fragments in another one of the connection paths in the skew group; and re-routing the connection paths until all the connection paths in the skew group have equivalent path fragments.