Electronic design automation (EDA) tools can allow users to design and analyze electronic devices or systems. These electronic design automation tools are typically tailored to perform a specific design task or set of design tasks, such as generate system level requirements, develop system architectures, perform electronic or network design, or the like. In developing an electronic system, engineering teams often employ multiple different electronic design automation tools, many times in tandem, to separately develop portions of the electronic system and then subsequently attempt to integrate them into a final electronic system design. While this development strategy can ultimately allow the engineering team to build the electronic system, the integration of the separately developed portions of the electronic system is difficult and usually leads to iterative re-design.
The difficulty with integrating the separately developed portions of the electronic system typically stems from the fact that the multiple different electronic design automation tools are typically developed as stand-alone tools, which are often not integrated during the design process. Thus, a design choice or alteration to a design made in one electronic design automation tool can have ripple effects to other portions of the electronic system design, which often are not be realized until there was an attempt to integrate the separately developed portions of the electronic system design. In an attempt to reduce a number of re-designs during the integration stage of the design process, some system design teams have attempted to perform an ad hoc characterization of the different design features as a design is being built or after integration has failed. These ad hoc characterization schemes typically include building a tool interface architecture in an attempt to enable all of the stand-alone electronic design automation tools to directly communicate their design characterizations with each other. Unfortunately, since many of the electronic design automation tools were designed for a particular purpose, which did not include interfacing with other electronic design automation tools, this direct tool interface becomes riddled with inconsistency.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds