Term | Meaning | Taught in |
|---|---|---|
Acceptance gate | The checks a delivered block must pass before the integrator takes it: collateral complete, version recorded, lint clean, interface as agreed. | |
Area roll-up | Summing block areas, adding clock tree, routing and fill overhead, and comparing the core with the die budget. NanoSoC: 0.585 mm2 of blocks, 0.655 mm2 core, 0.940 mm2 die core budget, 69.7% utilisation. | |
Budget | A number assigned to a block or link for area, timing, power or bandwidth, with an owner and a rule for changing it. | |
Change notice | The record that a delivered block changed: what, why, which interfaces and which tests are affected. | |
Collateral | Everything delivered with a block besides its RTL: models, constraints, register description, test and power intent. | |
Connectivity table | The wiring written as data: source, destination, width and tie-off. A checker compares it with the netlist. | |
Constraint merge | Combining block constraints and top constraints into one set, with clocks defined once at the top. | |
Feedthrough | A wire that passes through a block only because of where it sits in the hierarchy. It costs area, delay and a boundary decision. | |
Hardware-software contract | What firmware may rely on: register behaviour, reset values, ordering, error responses and known errata. | |
Interface contract | The written agreement at a block boundary: signals, timing, protocol and who owns each side. | |
Margin | Slack deliberately kept in a budget. It is spent over the schedule, and a burn-down shows how fast. | |
Partition | A block of the design treated as one unit of ownership and implementation, with fixed boundary budgets. | |
RACI | A table of who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed for each decision, used to run change control. | |
Tie-off | A constant value applied to an unused input. Every unused input needs one, and the lint tool checks it. | |
Wrapper | A layer around a delivered block that adapts widths, protocols, clocks, resets and test so the block's own files stay unchanged. |
Back to the Glossary for the other groups and the look-alike terms.