Patent ID: 7137078

Claim:
A method for displaying relevant portions of Register Transfer Language source code corresponding to displayed waveforms of signals, the method comprising steps of: a. displaying a plurality of waveforms of signals in a graphical user interface window; b. inputting a user's request of a user to display portions of Register Transfer Language source code that correspond to a value of a signal or a transition in a value of a signal at a particular time; c. identifying the portions of the Register Transfer Language source code corresponding to the user's request having steps of: i. synthesizing a gate level netlist from the Register Transfer Language source code; ii. performing instrumentation on the Register Transfer Language source code; iii. mapping the Register Transfer Language source code to the gate level netlist; and iv identifying the portions of the Register Transfer Language source code corresponding to the user's request using mapping including steps of: a. identifying a node of the gate level netlist corresponding to the signal that relates to the user's request,; b. traversing the gate level netlist backwards from the identified node to identify at least one node that corresponds to the value of the signal or the transition in the value of the signal at the particular time selected by the user, and c. identifying the portions of the register transfer language source code corresponding to the identified at least one node that corresponds to the value of the signal and the transition in the value of the signal at the particular time selected by the user using mapping; and d. displaying the identified portions of the Register Transfer Language source code.