ACCURATE GLITCH DETECTION

摘要

Systems and techniques for detecting design problems in a circuit design are described. A higher-level abstraction of the circuit design can be synthesized to obtain a lower-level abstraction of the circuit design, and a mapping between signals in the higher-level abstraction and the signals in the lower-level abstraction. A design problem can be detected in the circuit design in response to determining that a possible glitch in a signal in the lower-level abstraction is not blocked when an enable signal is assigned a blocking value (the enable signal and the corresponding blocking value are identified by analyzing the higher-level abstraction).

主权项

1. In an electronic design automation (EDA) software tool in a computer, a method for detecting design problems in a circuit design, the method comprising:
analyzing a higher-level abstraction of the circuit design to identify (1) a set of glitch-blocking circuits, (2) an enable signal corresponding to each glitch-blocking circuit, and (3) a blocking value corresponding to each enable signal which, when assigned to the enable signal, is supposed to cause the corresponding glitch-blocking circuit to block glitches; analyzing a lower-level abstraction of the circuit design to identify a possible glitch in a first signal in the lower-level abstraction of the circuit design, wherein the lower-level abstraction of the circuit design is generated from the higher-level abstraction of the circuit design; identifying a first enable signal in the lower-level abstraction of the circuit design that corresponds to a glitch-blocking circuit that is supposed to block glitches in the first signal; and detecting a design problem in the circuit design in response to determining that the possible glitch in the first signal is not blocked when the first enable signal is assigned a first blocking value corresponding to the first enable signal.