PREPARING ENGINEERING CHANGE ORDERS FOR PHYSICAL DESIGN USING BOOLEAN EQUIVALENCE CHECKING TOOLS

摘要

Embodiments herein describe performing an engineering change order (ECO) after a physical design team has begun (or finished) a physical design (PD) netlist. However, the ECO may describe changes or additions to the logic and/or nets using component names found in a design netlist that is different than the PD netlist. Embodiments herein rely on generating an equivalents nets file that the maps the components in the design netlist to the components in the PD netlist. When performing an ECO, the PD team can use this file to map the components in the ECO (which are based on the design netlist) to all the equivalent components in the PD netlist. The PD team then selects one of the equivalent components to alter as indicated in the ECO.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
receiving an engineering change order (ECO) that lists a name of a component in a first netlist; receiving a file linking the name of the component to a plurality of alternative names in a second netlist, wherein the plurality of alternative names represents components in the second netlist that are logically equivalent to the component in the first netlist; selecting one of the plurality of alternative names based on one or more criteria by calculating a score for each of the plurality of alternative names based on distances between the components represented by the plurality of alternative names and a circuit listed in the ECO, wherein the selected alternative name represents the component closest to the circuit; updating the ECO to include the selected alternative name; updating the second netlist based on the updated ECO; and controlling a fabrication of a semiconductor chip using the updated second netlist.