INTEGRATED CIRCUIT DESIGN METHOD

摘要

A design method for designing an integrated circuit (IC) and a corresponding integrated circuit design tool are presented. An IC design having a plurality of building blocks (121-129) being interconnected by a plurality of interconnection wires (131-139) is represented by a two-dimensional representation (200) mimicking the positions of the building blocks (121-129) and interconnections (131-139) in the actual IC lay-out. The two-dimensional representation allows the IC designer to evaluate the lengths of the interconnection wires (131-139), which enablesthe IC designer to alter the IC design before the IC design back-end, e.g. the IC area optimization, is entered, thus leading to a more effective IC design method.