IP Library › Granted Patent US 7,917,877
Granted Patent B2
US 7,917,877 · App. 12/118,558 · Granted Mar 29, 2011

System and method for circuit schematic generation

Assignee: Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 7,917,877
App. No.
12/118,558
Granted
Mar 29, 2011
Kind
B2
Abstract

The present invention provides a system and method for generating circuit schematic that includes extracting connectivity data of a plurality of devices from a netlist, categorizing the plurality of devices into groups, placing Schematic Analog Placement Constraints on all the instances by identifying instances among the groups that match with a circuit template (in-built as well as user-specified), creating a BFS instance tree of tree instances, creating a two terminal device clusters and creating instance attachments. Using the constraints during grid based placement and eventually generated schematic which look like analog schematic.

Claims (44)

1. A method for generating a circuit schematic, comprising:

using a computer system to identify a first group of instances that match a circuit template;

defining placement and constraint data for instances of the first group;

creating a circuit schematic having a grid by placing instances of the firstgroup in the grid based on the placement and constraint data; and

routing the instances of the first group using the placement and constraint data.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein defining placement and constraint data further comprising:

specifying a pair of master devices;

specifying a number of terminal pairs of instances;

specifying a quadrant based relative position information of instance pairs;

specifying orientation information for instance pairs; and

specifying augmentation information for instance pairs.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein defining placement and constraint data further comprising creating a topology cluster based on a topology specification template.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein specifying the pair of master devices of instances comprises one or more of a n-type MOSFET transistor device (NMOS), a p-type MOSFET transistor device (PMOS), a NPN bipolar transistor device (NTX), and a PNP bipolar transistor device (PTX).

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein creating the topology cluster further comprising specifying a number of terminal pairs, wherein a first terminal pair belongs to the first instance and a second terminal pair belongs to a second instance.

6. The method of claim 2 , wherein creating the topology cluster further comprising specifying a quadrant based location to instances matching the pair of master devices and the number of terminal pairs.

7. The method of claim 2 , wherein creating the topology cluster further comprising specifying orientation information to instances matching the pair of master devices and the number of terminal pairs.

8. The method of claim 2 , wherein creating the topology cluster further comprising specifying augmentation information to instances matching the pair of master devices and the number of terminal pairs.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the augmentation information comprises: NONE, HORIZONTAL, VERTICAL, DIAGONAL, or Darington Pair augmentation information.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the circuit template comprises a built-in template.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying the first group of instances further comprising extracting connectivity data of the first group of instances from a netlist that match the circuit template.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the column of a topology cluster is placed probabilistically in a schematic placement grid, and wherein each cluster is assigned a row based on a relative placement in the topology cluster.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein defining placement and constraint data comprises:

identifying a second group of instances that contains only two-terminal devices;

clustering the identified two-terminal devices; and

creating a dummy instance for each clustered two-terminal devices.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein a two terminal device is a device having only two terminals with each terminal in opposite direction.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein for each two-terminal instance cluster, a dummy instance is created, wherein dummy ports of a dummy instance are created for each net that connects to an instance which does not belong to the same two-terminal cluster.

16. The method of claim 14 , wherein for each two-terminal cluster, the instances and their connections belonging to this cluster are removed from the instance and connectivity lists, respectively.

17. The method of claim 14 , wherein the dummy instance and dummy port connections for each cluster are inserted in the instance and instance connection list, respectively.

18. The method of claim 13 , the cluster of two terminal devices comprises: a resistor-capacitor circuit or a series-parallel circuit cluster (SPC).

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the SPC cluster is created by first finding parallel instances and expanding the parallel instances in a direction of a port.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein expanding the parallel instances comprises:

adding a two terminal instance in series on one side of the SPC cluster.

21. The method of claim 18 , wherein while creating cluster of two terminal instances, each instance is assigned relative row and column values.

22. The method of claim 1 , wherein defining placement and constraint data further comprising creating a breadth-first search (BFS) tree.

23. The method of claim 22 , wherein creating the breadth-first search (BFS) tree further comprising identifying instances in the first group having a top port being connected to a power net, wherein the identified instances are added at the level zero of the breadth-first search (BFS) tree.

24. A computer system for generating a circuit schematic, the computer system comprising:

a processor;

a memory connected to the processor; and

a non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions embedded therein, the instructions configured to cause the processor to perform the operations of:

identifying a first group of instances that match a circuit template;

defining placement and constraint data for instances of the first group;

creating a circuit schematic having a grid by placing instances of the first group in the grid based on the placement and constraint data; and

routing the instances of the first group using the placement and constraint data.

Assignments (1)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded May 9, 2008
From: SINGH, BALVINDER; O'RIORDAN, DONALD; ARSINTESCU, BOGDAN GEORGE; GOEL, ALKA; DESHPANDE, DEVENDRA RAMAKANT
To: CADENCE DESIGN SYSTEMS, INC.
Reel/Frame 020929/0950 →
Continuity (1)
Related Publication 20090282379A1 · Nov 12, 2009