Patent ID: 8719745

Claim:
A method for establishing a debugging user interface for a cell within an interdependent hierarchy of cells in an integrated circuit (IC) layout, comprising: establishing a data store of source code portions, each source code portion defining at least part of a cell; actuating a user interface to accept a user selection of at least one cell in an integrated circuit (IC) layout, the layout including at least one hierarchical cell having a hierarchy of subordinate cells formed therein, each subordinate cell being collectively defined by a corresponding source code portion in the data store and at least one parametric component derived from at least one other cell within the hierarchy; actuating a computer processor to: identify a source code portion corresponding to the selected cell; establish a breakpoint, responsive to the user selection, at a predetermined location of the source code portion corresponding to the selected cell; execute a set of source code portions to establish at least a portion of the hierarchical cell containing the selected cell to generate a value for at least one parametric component of the selected cell identifying a set of other cells in the hierarchy of cells and a set of their corresponding source code portions required to generate parametric component values for the selected cell; arrest execution at the breakpoint; display to a user the source code portion corresponding to the selected cell and the value for the at least one parametric component of the selected cell.