Method and system for instrumenting simulation models

DETAILED DESCRIPTION It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a method and system for interactively designing and simulating complex circuits and systems, particularly digital devices, modules and systems.
It is another object of the invention to provide a method and system for efficiently simulating and verifying the logical correctness of complex digital circuit designs.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a method and system that improve the model build and simulation processes in order to allow a designer to easily instrument and monitor a simulation model.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a method and system that utilize instrumentation modules written in a hardware description language to monitor the performance of computer-generated digital circuit designs.
The above and other objects are achieved as is now described.
A method and system are disclosed that utilize the expressiveness of hardware description languages for efficiently and comprehensively monitoring performance characteristics of a digital circuit design during simulation.
According to the present invention, a design entity that is part of a digital circuit design is first described utilizing a hardware description language.
Next, an instrumentation entity is described utilizing the same hardware description language.
Thereafter, the design entity is instantiated in at least one instance within a simulation model of a digital circuit design.
Finally, the instrumentation entity is associated with the design entity utilizing a non-conventional call, such that the instrumentation entity may be utilized to monitor each instantiation of the design entity within the simulation model without the instrumentation entity becoming incorporated into the digital circuit design.