System for determining the operations of an integrated circuit and processor for use therein

DETAILED DESCRIPTION A first embodiment of the present invention is shown in FIG.
2.
The system comprises a translator 2 which receives information supplied by the manufacturer concerning information such as the pin names, pin types, pin ordering and so on including pulse rejection, violations, timing and capacitance information if available and translates the information into a reference language of the system.
At present, there are four types of pins which may be entered, level pins, data pins, clock pins and latch pins.
This information is all stored in a database 4 such as a hard disc.
A store 5 such as a hard disc stores a range of stimuli which can be applied to a model of an integrated circuit.
A selector 6 selects an optimum range of stimuli on the basis of the particular type of i.
c.
under test.
This is usually done in dependence of the types of pins used by the i.
c.
If the integrated circuit the subject of the model is complex, as discussed before up to 9 different types of stimuli may be used in order to obtain sufficiently comprehensive results to guarantee that all the functions of the i.
c.
are known.
The application of each stimulus takes a relatively long period of time.
Consequently, selecting the optimum range of stimuli can speed up the process but at the expense of accuracy.
It has been found that a reduction of 30 fold can be achieved while still maintaining the accuracy required.
The stimuli selected by the selector 6 are then translated by a first translator 8 from the language of the system into an alien language.
The first translator 8 will be specific to the alien environment to be used.
A model of the i.
c.
under test is stored in an alien store 10.
This model has been written by a modeler in an alien language for an alien system.
An alien simulator 12 obtains the alien model from the alien store 10 and applies to it the stimuli from the first translator 8.
Thus all access to the model is made via the alien simulator to maintain a perfect alien environment.
The results and stimuli are translated by a second translator 14 into the reference language of the system