Controlling an electronic circuit

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10223226-B2
Application number	US-201615351416-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 14, 2016
Priority date	Nov 14, 2016
Publication date	Mar 5, 2019
Grant date	Mar 5, 2019

Abstract

Disclosed aspects relate to controlling an electronic circuit having multiple units with at least one signal input each. A set of signal resources is determined by tracing back a dependency tree for each unit signal input until an endpoint representing a signal resource is reached. For each signal resource in the set a resource manager may be provided in dependence of its signal type. That resource manager may be assigned a set of signal inputs comprising each signal input in the circuit which was traced back to its respective signal resource. The resource manager is configured for controlling the signal resource. A control device may be provided to receive technical implementation requirements for one or more of the resource managers, detect conflicting requirements received for the one or more resource managers, and enable or disable one or more of the resource managers in response to the detected conflicting requirements.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for controlling the function of an electronic circuit comprising multiple units with at least one signal input each, the method comprising:
determining a set of signal resources by tracing back a dependency tree for each unit signal input until an endpoint representing a signal resource is reached;
for each signal resource in the set providing a resource manager in dependence of its signal type and assigning to the resource manager a set of signal inputs comprising each signal input in the circuit which was traced back to its respective signal resource, the resource manager being configured for controlling the signal resource; and
providing a control device comprising:
a receiver to receive technical implementation requirements for one or more of the resource managers;
a conflict detector to detect conflicting requirements received for the one or more resource managers; and
an enabler to enable or disable one or more of the resource managers in response to the detected conflicting requirements.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
for each resource manager of the generated resource managers determining its dependencies from other resource managers regarding the respective sets of input signals, wherein the control device is generated in dependence of the determined resource manager dependencies.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received requirements comprise first requirements of a first test of the electronic circuit and second requirements of a second test of the electronic circuit, the method further comprising executing the first and second tests under the condition of anyone of an enabling or disabling of the one or more resource managers.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received requirements comprise first requirements of a first test of the electronic circuit and second requirements of a second test of the electronic circuit, the method further comprising executing the first and second tests under the condition of an enabling of the one or more resource managers, the executing of the first and second tests being performed in parallel.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received requirements comprise first requirements of a first test of the electronic circuit and second requirements of a second test of the electronic circuit, the method further comprising executing the first and second tests under the condition of an enabling of the one or more resource managers, the executing of the first and second tests being performed in a concurrent fashion.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received requirements comprise first requirements of a first test of the electronic circuit and second requirements of a second test of the electronic circuit, the method further comprising executing the first and second tests under the condition of an enabling of the one or more resource managers, the executing of the first and second tests being performed in sequence.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received requirements comprise first requirements of a first test of the electronic circuit and second requirements of a second test of the electronic circuit, the method further comprising executing the first and second tests under the condition of a disabling of the one or more resource managers, the executing of the first and second tests being performed in parallel.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received requirements comprise first requirements of a first test of the electronic circuit and second requirements of a second test of the electronic circuit, the method further comprising executing the first and second tests under the condition of a disabling of the one or more resource managers, the executing of the first and second tests being performed in a concurrent fashion.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the received requirements comprise first requirements of a first test of the electronic circuit and second requirements of a second test of the electronic circuit, the method further comprising executing the first and second tests under the condition of a disabling of the one or more resource managers, the executing of the first and second tests being performed in sequence.

10. The method of claim 3 , the first and second tests being parallel tests, wherein the enabling and disabling of the one or more resource managers further comprises pausing the execution of one of the first and second tests while executing the other test, and continuing execution of the one of the first and second tests after solving the conflict.

11. The method of claim 1 , detecting the conflict comprising: receiving by at least one resource manager of the generated resource managers a first and second resource requirement via first and second tests respectively, determining by the resource manager that the first and second requirements are conflicting requirements and sending a message indicating the conflict to the conflict detector.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the electronic circuit is partitioned into at least one power domain partition, at least one clock domain partition, and at least one reset domain partition, wherein each resource manager of the resource managers is generated for a respective one of the clock, power and reset domains.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the electronic circuit is partitioned into at least one power domain partition, wherein each resource manager of the resource managers is generated for one of the power domains.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the electronic circuit is partitioned into at least one clock domain partition, wherein each resource manager of the resource managers is generated for one of the clock domains.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the electronic circuit is partitioned into at least one reset domain partition, wherein each resource manager of the resource managers is generated for one of the reset domains.

16. The method of claim 2 , wherein the dependencies are determined in accordance with a promise theory using each dependency as a promise.

17. The method of claim 1 , the determining of the set of signal resources comprising parsing a textual description of the structure and behavior of the electronic circuit.

18. The method of claim 17 , the textual description being a HDL description.

19. A computer program product for controlling the function of an electronic circuit, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, wherein the computer readable storage medium is not a transitory signal per se, the program instructions executable by a processor to cause the processor to perform a method comprising:
determining a set of signal resources by tracing back a dependency tree for each unit signal input until an endpoint representing a signal resource is reached;
for each signal resource in the set providing a resource manager in dependence of its signal type and assigning to the resource manager a set of signal inputs comprising each signal input in the circuit which was traced back to its respective signal resource, the resource manager being configured for controlling the signal resource; and
providing a control device comprising:
a receiver to receive technical implementation requirements for one or more of the resource managers;
a conflict detector to detect conflicting requirements received for the one or more resource managers; and
an enabler to enable or disable one or more of the resource managers in response to the detected conflicting requireme

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Behrend Joerg
• Horbach Holger
• Jung Alexander
• Keuerleber Klaus
• Korrapati Sandeep
• Wakunda Juergen

Classifications

• G06F11/2289

  by configuration test · CPC title

• G06F11/263 Primary

  Generation of test inputs, e.g. test vectors, patterns or sequences {; with adaptation of the tested hardware for testability with external testers} · CPC title

• G06F11/2736

  using a dedicated service processor for test · CPC title