In an emulation system, a method is provided to schedule evaluations of state elements and memory elements receiving signals from multiple asynchronous clock domains, such that causality and hold time requirements are satisfied. In addition, a method is provided such that logic signals responsive to multiple asynchronous clock domains are transported along separate single domain path of substantially equal transit times. In one implementation, the scheduling method computes departure times and ready times for output and input terminals of logic modules, such as FPGAs.

An emulation system equipped to emulate multiple circuit designs concurrently is disclosed. The emulation system includes an emulator having reconfigurable emulation resources for emulating circuit designs, and a host system programmed with programming instructions that operate to generate coordinated configuration information for a number of circuit designs to enable the reconfigurable emulation resources to be configured in a coordinated manner to allow the circuit designs to be emulated concurrently.

Methods and systems for verifying the proper function of reconfigurable logic elements and reconfigurable interconnects are disclosed. Reconfigurable logic elements in an emulation integrated circuit are arranged such that one set of reconfigurable logic elements is used to test a second set of reconfigurable logic elements. After completion of the test of the second set of reconfigurable logic elements, the roles of the first and seconds sets are reversed and the second set of reconfigurable logic elements is used to test the first set. Reconfigurable interconnects are tested by appropriately pairing the interconnect devices in a mirrored manner during a test.

Methods and apparatuses for emulating a circuit design that includes an in-circuit memory. Sets of reconfigurable logic resources are configured to emulate a logic element of a circuit, where the circuit may include a plurality of logic elements. A memory resource is configured to emulate a portion of the in-circuit memory. Reconfigurable interconnect resources are configured to interconnect the sets of configurable logic resources to the memory resource by way of a memory access arbiter. The memory access arbiter is configured to arbitrate and serialize accesses for the memory resource by the sets of reconfigurable logic resources in an emulation cycle, in accordance with associated priority levels. The priority level of the set of reconfigurable logic resources may be dependent on timing requirements of the set of reconfigurable logic resources and on timing characteristics of the associated logic element of the circuit.

Data processing resources are distributively provided to an emulation system to locally and correspondingly generate testing stimuli, and applying the generated testing stimuli to partitions of an IC design to be emulated. In one embodiment, the distributed data processing resources further locally and correspondingly retrieve state data of emulation state circuit elements, analyze the retrieved state data for one or more events, and report the one or more events upon their detection. In one embodiment, the distributed data processing resources are disposed on logic boards of an emulation system. In other embodiments, at least some of the distributed data processing resources are disposed on the emulation ICs of the logic boards.