Patent ID: 8683410

Claim:
A method for mapping an integrated circuit (“IC”) design to an IC, the design comprising a plurality of components, the method comprising: identifying a plurality of multi-path components that are each on multiple signal paths; for each component, computing, by a computer, a normalized metric value that falls within a fixed numerical range to express a position of the component on a uniform scale that is used to express positions of all components with respect to each other, said computing comprising computing, for each multi-path component of a subset of the plurality of multi-path components, the normalized metric value based at least partially on a distance of the multi-path component to a start of a first signal path and a distance of the multi-path component to an end of a second signal path that is different from an end of the first signal path; and based on the normalized metric value, assigning the component to one of a plurality of operational cycles.