JPH0480947A - Electronic circuit design equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To contrive to provide automatically a laid-out interblock connection wiring by a method wherein in case there is a common wiring region between two blocks, which are objects to be connected, a positioning of each terminal for the connection wiring is performed on the sides, which respectively come into contact with this common wiring region, of the blocks. CONSTITUTION:The title device is provided with a common wiring region detecting terminal positioning means 3, by which when two blocks have a common wiring region between them, a positioning of each connecting terminal is performed on the sides, which respectively come into contact with this common wiring region, of the blocks. Moreover, a center-of-gravity calculating terminal positioning means 2 includes a means for performing a positioning of a connecting terminal to a block decided as a block having not the common wiring region by the means 3 and is connected to the back of the means 3. For example, a block 11 and a block 12, which are required for connection, are selected. For bringing these two block into contact to a common wiring region 13, connecting terminals are respectively installed on the lower side, where the block 11 comes into contact with the region 13, of the block 11 and on the upper side, where the block 12 comes into contact with the region 13, of the block 12 and a connection wiring 15a is installed.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention is applicable to an electronic circuit design device that automatically designs an electronic circuit, and in particular, in the layout design of an integrated circuit.
The present invention relates to an electronic circuit design device that improves the connection wiring method between blocks.

〔overview〕

The present invention provides an electronic circuit design apparatus equipped with means for automatically performing connection wiring between laid-out blocks, and when there is a common wiring area (channel) between two blocks to be connected, this common wiring area By positioning the terminals of the connection wiring on the sides of each block that are in contact with the block, the chip area is reduced by making effective use of the wiring area.

[Conventional technology]

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing an example of a conventional electronic circuit design apparatus.

This conventional example includes a processor (CPU) 51, a memory (ME
M) 52, keyboard (KB) 54, display (
CRT) 55, and input/output interface (Ilo)
53, electronic circuit design data is inputted from a keyboard 54 using a database stored in a memory 52, processed by a processor 51, and outputted as design drawings and data via an input/output interface 53.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an inter-block connection wiring section included in a conventional processor.

This conventional example includes a block selection means 1 that selects two blocks to be connected based on layout information of an electronic circuit including a plurality of blocks and wiring areas between these blocks, and connection information. The center of gravity calculation terminal positioning means 2 calculates the center of gravity of two blocks and positions the connection terminal on a straight line connecting these two centers of gravity.

Next, the operation of this conventional example will be explained by updating the flowchart shown in FIG.

The block selection means 1 selects two connected blocks based on the connection information.Step 511) The center of gravity calculation terminal positioning means 2 calculates the center of gravity of each block.Step 512) The straight line connecting the center of gravity of each block and the block. Find the intersection of , and set the connection terminal at the intersection where the distance to the other block is shortened (step 513).

Next, a specific design example according to this conventional example will be explained.

When the position of the block and the connection information between the blocks are given, when finding the terminal position in the block, as shown in design example (1) in Fig. 8, the center of gravity 16 of the block 11
and the center of gravity 17 of the block 12 with a straight line 22, find the intersections 18 and 19 between this straight line 22 and the block 11, and the intersections 20 and 21 with the block 12, and find the intersection points 18 and 19 between the straight line 22 and the block 11, and the intersections 20 and 21 with the block 12. Connection terminals were set at intersections, that is, intersections 19 in block 11 and intersections 20 in block 12, and connection wiring 15 was set. In this case, the connection wiring 15 passed over the two wiring regions 13 and 14.

FIG. 9 is a layout diagram showing a design example (2) according to this conventional example. This design example (2) has five blocks 30~
In this layout, connection wiring is set between block 30 and block 36 in a layout in which block 36 and five wiring areas 38 to 42 are arranged.

In this case, as shown in FIG. 9, the centers of gravity of the blocks 30 and 36 are connected by a straight line 43, and the intersections 46 and 47 of this straight line 43 and the block 30 are connected to the intersections 44 and 45 of the block 36. The connection terminals are set at the intersections where the distance from the other block is shortened, that is, the intersections 44 and 46 for the block 36 and the intersection 46 for the block 30, respectively, and the connection wiring 37 is set. In this case, the connection wiring 37 is divided into five wiring areas 38, 39, 40, 41
and 42.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

In the connection wiring method between blocks in the conventional electronic circuit design equipment described above, only the placement relationship of each block is considered, and the positional relationship between the block and the wiring area is not considered at all, so it is difficult to determine the position of each terminal in the block. When determining a general connection wiring, this general connection wiring may require two or more wiring areas, which has the drawback of increasing the circuit scale and, for example, increasing the chip area of a semiconductor integrated circuit.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide an electronic circuit design apparatus that can prevent an increase in circuit scale and reduce the chip area of a semiconductor integrated circuit, for example, by eliminating the above-mentioned drawbacks.

[Means to solve the problem]

The present invention provides block selection means for selecting two blocks to which inter-block connections are to be made on a layout diagram of an electronic circuit including a plurality of blocks and wiring areas between rectangularly divided blocks; In an electronic circuit design apparatus, the electronic circuit design apparatus is equipped with a center of gravity calculation terminal positioning means for calculating the center of gravity of two blocks and positioning a connecting terminal on a straight line connecting these centers of gravity. A common wiring area detection terminal positioning means is provided for detecting whether or not the block has a common wiring area, and positioning the connecting terminal on the side of each block that is in contact with the common wiring area when the block has a common wiring area. shall be.

Further, in the present invention, it is preferable that the center of gravity calculation terminal positioning means includes means for determining the position of the connection terminal for the block determined by the common wiring area detection terminal positioning means to have no common wiring area. .

[Effect]

In the present invention, when the arrangement positions between blocks and the connection information between the blocks are given and the connection wiring between the two blocks is set, the first step is to determine whether the two blocks have a common wiring area. is detected, and if the block has a common wiring area, connection terminals are positioned on the sides of each block that are in contact with the common wiring area, and connection wiring is set on the common wiring area. For blocks that do not have a common wiring area, the conventional processing method for determining the center of gravity is performed.

Therefore, if the two target blocks have a common wiring area, the wiring area to be used is limited to the common wiring area, and other wiring areas are unnecessary as wiring areas. Effective utilization including deletion becomes possible, and as a result, the size of the circuit becomes smaller, and for example, the chip area of a semiconductor integrated circuit can be reduced.

〔Example〕

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, and shows an inter-block connection wiring section. Note that the overall configuration is the same as the conventional example shown in FIG.

This embodiment includes a block selection means 1 that selects two blocks to be connected based on layout information and connection information of an electronic circuit including a plurality of blocks and wiring areas between the blocks; A center of gravity calculation terminal positioning means 2 for calculating the center of gravity of the center of gravity and positioning the connection terminal on a straight line connecting these centers of gravity. Common wiring area detection terminal positioning that detects whether blocks have a common wiring area and, if they have a common wiring area, positions connection terminals on the sides of each block that touch this common wiring area Means 3 is provided.

The center of gravity calculation terminal positioning means 2 includes means for positioning connection terminals for blocks determined by the common wiring area detection terminal positioning means 3 to have no common wiring area, and the common wiring area detection terminal positioning means 3 connected after.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be explained with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

First, the block selection means 1 performs a process of selecting two blocks with connection requests (step Sl). next,
The common wiring area detection terminal positioning means 3 performs a process of determining whether these two blocks are in contact with a common wiring area (step S2), and for each of the two blocks that are in contact with a common wiring area, Connection terminals are set on the sides of the block (step S3). Then, in step S2, for the blocks that are determined not to be in contact with the common wiring area, the center of gravity calculation terminal positioning means 2 performs a center of gravity calculation process to obtain the center of gravity (step S4), using the conventional terminal positioning method. A connection terminal is set at the intersection of the block and a line connecting the center of gravity of each block (step S5).

Next, a specific design example according to this embodiment will be explained.

FIG. 3 is a layout diagram showing a design example (1) according to this embodiment, and corresponds to FIG. 8 of the conventional example.

Blocks 11 and 12 with connection requests are selected. Since these two blocks are in contact with a common wiring area 13, connection terminals are set on the lower side of block 11 where block 11 and wiring area 13 are in contact, and on the upper side of block 12 where block 12 and wiring area 13 are in contact. The wiring 15a is set.

In this case, only the wiring area 13 is used for the connection wiring 15a, and the wiring area 1 shown with diagonal lines, which was required in the conventional method, is used.
4 becomes unnecessary and can be used effectively for other purposes.

FIG. 4 is a layout diagram showing a design example (2) according to this embodiment, and corresponds to FIG. 9 of the conventional example.

As shown in FIG. 4, when determining the connection terminal position between block 30 and block 36, since these two blocks touch a common wiring area 38, block 30 and wiring area 36
8 and the lower side of block 30 in contact with block 3
Connecting terminals are respectively set on the upper side of the block 36 where the wiring area 3B and the wiring area 3B are in contact with each other, and the connecting wiring 37a is set.

In this design example (2), only one wiring area 38 is used, and the wiring area 39 shown with diagonal lines, which was conventionally required.
．． 40, 41 and 42 become unnecessary and can be effectively used for other purposes.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, in the present invention, when the arrangement position and connection information of the block are given in advance, when determining the connection terminal position in the block, when two blocks touch a common wiring area, the common wiring area By setting connection terminals on the sides of each block that are in contact with the block, it is possible to determine the connection terminal position taking into account the positional relationship with the wiring area of each block, which allows the wiring area to be used effectively and reduces the increase in circuit scale. For example, the chip area of a semiconductor integrated circuit can be reduced.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram showing an inter-block wiring connection section according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation. FIG. 3 is a layout diagram showing a design example (1) according to this embodiment. FIG. 4 is a layout diagram showing a design example (2) according to this embodiment. FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing an embodiment and a conventional example. FIG. 6 is a block configuration diagram showing a conventional inter-block connection wiring section. FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the operation. FIG. 8 is a layout diagram showing a design example (1) according to this conventional example. FIG. 9 is a layout diagram showing a design example (2) according to this conventional example. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1...Block selection means, 2...Gravity center calculation terminal positioning means, 3...Common wiring area detection terminal positioning means, 10-12.30-36...Blocks, 13.14
．． 38-42... Wiring area, 15.15a, 37
．． 37a... Connection wiring, 16.17... Center of gravity, 18
~21.44~47...Intersection, 22.43...Line, 51...Processor (CPU), 52...Memory (MEM) 53...Human output interface (Il)
o), 54...Keyboard (KB), 55...
Display (CRT), 81~S5.311~31
3...Step.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Block selection means for selecting two blocks to be connected between blocks on a layout diagram of an electronic circuit including a plurality of blocks and a wiring area between rectangularly divided blocks; , an electronic circuit design device comprising a center of gravity calculation terminal positioning means for calculating the center of gravity of two target blocks and positioning a connecting terminal on a straight line connecting these centers of gravity, wherein the two target blocks are common. A common wiring area detection terminal positioning means is provided for detecting whether the block has a wiring area of An electronic circuit design device characterized by: 2. The electronic circuit design apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the center of gravity calculation terminal positioning means includes means for positioning connection terminals for blocks determined by the common wiring area detection terminal positioning means to have no common wiring area. .