Patent ID: 7146302

Claim:
A method of data processing to construct a configuration database supporting configuration of a hardware system, said method comprising: a data processing system determining a presence of a plurality of types of integrated circuits in a hardware system and how many instances of each type of integrated circuit are present in the hardware system, wherein said hardware system includes at least two identical instances of at least a first type of integrated circuit and at least one instance of a second type of integrated circuit; and in response to the determination, the data processing system loading into volatile memory a system configuration database including a respective chip hardware database for each type of integrated circuit in said hardware system, each chip hardware database defining a Dial entity controlling which of a plurality of different possible latch values is placed in a hardware latch of the associated type of integrated circuit, wherein said system configuration database includes a first chip hardware database for said first type of integrated circuit that contains per-instance information for each of said at least two instances of said first type of integrated circuit.