Patent ID: 8769448

Claim:
A method of processing a circuit design, comprising: providing a user-selectable plug-in for compilation of the circuit design, the plug-in being associated with an interface circuit; associating the plug-in with a device on a hardware platform and with the circuit design, the circuit design having a first set of ports, configured to couple to respective ports of a first set of ports of the associated device, the circuit design having a second set of ports, configured to couple to respective ports of a second set of ports of the associated device; in response to user input and the plug-in being in a data-acquisition mode: generating a simulation model of the circuit design having first and second sets of ports coupled to respective first and second sets of ports of an interface circuit; emulating the interface circuit on the hardware platform; and simulating the simulation model in a software simulation environment, and during the simulating, the interface circuit providing data from each of the first set of ports of the circuit design to a respective port of the first set of ports of the associated device and providing data from each of the second set of ports of the associated device to a respective port of the second set of ports of the circuit design; and in response to user input and the plug-in being in a deployment mode, generating, by a processor, an implementation of the circuit design having the first and second sets of ports of the circuit design respectively coupled to the first and second sets of ports of the associated device.