Apparatus and methods for calibrating analog circuitry in an integrated circuit
Granted: February 2, 2021
Patent Number:
10911164
The present disclosure provides apparatus and methods for the calibration of analog circuitry on an integrated circuit. One embodiment relates to a method of calibrating analog circuitry within an integrated circuit. A microcontroller that is embedded in the integrated circuit is booted up. A reset control signal is sent to reset an analog circuit in the integrated circuit, and a response signal for the analog circuit is monitored by the microcontroller. Based on the response signal, a…
Method and apparatus for relocating design modules while preserving timing closure
Granted: February 2, 2021
Patent Number:
10909296
A method for designing a system on a target device includes generating a solution for the system. A solution for a module of the system identified by a user is preserved. The preserved solution for the module is implemented at a location on the target device identified by the user.
Multi-access memory system and a method to manufacture the system
Granted: January 19, 2021
Patent Number:
10896890
A multiple memory access system is disclosed. The system includes a first die disposed on a package substrate. A second die is stacked above the first die. The first die, the second die and the package substrate form a first package. An IC is placed within a close proximity of the first package where the first die communicates with the second die at a first data rate while the first die communicates with the IC at a second data rate. The first data rate is higher than the second data…
Multichip package with protocol-configurable data paths
Granted: January 5, 2021
Patent Number:
10884964
Integrated circuit packages with multiple integrated circuit dies are provided. A multichip package may include a substrate, a main die that is mounted on the substrate, and multiple transceiver daughter dies that are mounted on the substrate and that are coupled to the main die via corresponding Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge (EMIB) interconnects formed in the substrate. Each of the main die and the daughter dies may include configurable adapter circuitry for interfacing with…
Fixed-point and floating-point arithmetic operator circuits in specialized processing blocks
Granted: November 17, 2020
Patent Number:
10838695
The present embodiments relate to circuitry that efficiently performs floating-point arithmetic operations and fixed-point arithmetic operations. Such circuitry may be implemented in specialized processing blocks. If desired, the specialized processing blocks may include configurable interconnect circuitry to support a variety of different use modes. For example, the specialized processing block may efficiently perform a fixed-point or floating-point addition operation or a portion…
Methods for memory interface calibration
Granted: November 10, 2020
Patent Number:
10832787
Integrated circuits with memory interface circuitry may be provided. Prior to calibration, a number of samples may be determined by computing probability density function curves as a function of timing window edge asymmetry for different degrees of oversampling. During calibration, duty cycle distortion in data strobe signals may be corrected by selectively delaying the data strobe rising or falling edges. A data clock signal that is used for generating data signals may also suffer from…
Selectable reconfiguration for dynamically reconfigurable IP cores
Granted: November 10, 2020
Patent Number:
10831960
Systems and methods for reconfiguration of a hardened intellectual property (IP) block in an integrated circuit (IC) device are provided. Reconfiguration of the hardened IP block in the IC device may transition between functions supported by the hardened IP block. A transition may occur as a pre-configured profile is selected to reconfigure the hardened IP block. Further, configuration data associated with each of the pre-configured profiles of the hardened IP block may be generated and…
Apparatus and method for fast-path memory operations
Granted: October 13, 2020
Patent Number:
10802723
Embodiments of the present invention provide tightly coupled off-die memory along with an interface bus and smart buffer logic so as to efficiently perform certain frequent or repetitive operations off of a core logic. Embodiments of the present invention relieve the core logic from performing certain repetitive or frequent memory accesses and other operations so as to allow such core logic to perform other more general or varied operations. In this way, the universal interface bus,…
Apparatus for flexible electronic interfaces and associated methods
Granted: October 6, 2020
Patent Number:
10797702
A semiconductor die includes at least one flexible interface block. The flexible interface block includes at least one interconnect, and at least one buffer coupled to the at least one interconnect. The flexible interface block further includes a routing interface coupled to circuitry integrated in the semiconductor die, and a controller coupled to provide communication between the routing interface and the at least one buffer.
Method and apparatus for performing parallel routing using a multi-threaded routing procedure
Granted: September 22, 2020
Patent Number:
10783310
A method for designing a system to be implemented on a target device includes generating bounding boxes on the target device for nets in the system where a bounding box identifies routing resources available for routing its corresponding net. The nets in the system are assigned to a plurality of threads to be routed. The threads are executed so that a plurality of the nets are routed in parallel within their corresponding bounding box.
Flexible physical function and virtual function mapping
Granted: September 22, 2020
Patent Number:
10782995
Techniques and mechanisms provide a flexible mapping for physical functions and virtual functions in an environment including virtual machines.
Fluid routing devices and methods for cooling integrated circuit packages
Granted: September 8, 2020
Patent Number:
10770372
A fluid routing device includes a fluid inlet, first vertical channels, a horizontal channel, a second vertical channel, and a fluid outlet. The first vertical channels are open to the fluid inlet. The horizontal channel is open to each of the first vertical channels. The first vertical channels are oriented to provide fluid coolant from the fluid inlet vertically down to the horizontal channel. The horizontal channel is open on one side such that fluid coolant in the horizontal channel…
Driver for network timing systems
Granted: September 1, 2020
Patent Number:
10762013
Devices and methods of providing drivers for software and hardware systems to avoid additional polling or interrupt mechanisms are provided. An electronic device includes a processor supporting a device driver to perform a data packet receiving operation or data packet transmission operation. The device driver causes the processor to receive one or more data packets to a port of the processor according to a time-synchronization protocol. The device driver polls the DMA feature for a…
Reduced floating-point precision arithmetic circuitry
Granted: September 1, 2020
Patent Number:
10761805
The present embodiments relate to performing reduced-precision floating-point arithmetic operations using specialized processing blocks with higher-precision floating-point arithmetic circuitry. A specialized processing block may receive four floating-point numbers that represent two single-precision floating-point numbers, each separated into an LSB portion and an MSB portion, or four half-precision floating-point numbers. A first partial product generator may generate a first partial…
Method and apparatus for designing and implementing a convolution neural net accelerator
Granted: July 28, 2020
Patent Number:
10726328
A method for implementing a convolutional neural network (CNN) accelerator on a target includes identifying characteristics and parameters for the CNN accelerator. Resources on the target are identified. A design for the CNN accelerator is generated in response to the characteristics and parameters of the CNN accelerator and the resources on the target.
Methods and apparatus for selectively extracting and loading register states
Granted: July 28, 2020
Patent Number:
10725528
Integrated circuits may include registers that store register states. Only a subset of the registers may store critical register states. The subset of registers may be specially demarcated, such as using synthesis directions in the hardware description, and may be coupled to dedicated extraction/loading circuitry. The extraction/loading circuitry may be implemented using soft or hard logic or can leverage existing programming or debugging circuitry on a programmable integrated circuit.…
Selectively disabled output
Granted: July 21, 2020
Patent Number:
10720927
Circuits, methods, and apparatus are directed to an integrated circuit having a disabling element that can disable a reading of data from the circuit. Once the disabling element is set to not allow a reading of the data, the disabling element cannot be changed to allow a reading of the data. The data may be configuration data or internal data stored within the integrated circuit. Examples of the disabling element include a memory element, a break in a circuit line, and an input pad…
Integrated circuit device with embedded programmable logic
Granted: July 21, 2020
Patent Number:
10719460
Systems and methods are provided to enhance the functionality of an integrated circuit. Such an integrated circuit may include a primary circuitry and an embedded programmable logic programmable to adjust the functionality of the primary circuitry. Specifically, the embedded programmable logic may be programmed to adjust the functionality of the primary circuitry to complement and/or support the functionality of another integrated circuit. Accordingly, the embedded programmable logic may…
Efficient virtual I/O address translation
Granted: July 14, 2020
Patent Number:
10713083
A method includes using a network interface controller to monitor a transmit ring, wherein the transmit ring comprises a circular ring data structure that stores descriptors, wherein a descriptor describes data and comprises a guest bus address that provides a virtual memory location of the data. The method also includes using the network interface controller to determine that a descriptor has been written to the transmit ring. The method further includes using the network interface…
Method and apparatus for verifying initial state equivalence of changed registers in retimed circuits
Granted: July 7, 2020
Patent Number:
10706203
A method for designing a system on a target device includes performing register retiming on an original design to generate a retimed design of the system. Compare points are identified in the original design and the retimed design. Equality constraints are defined for all compare points. Starting from the initial states of the original and retimed circuits, bounded sequential logic simulation is performed for a maximum number of time frames determined as the maximum absolute value of…
