Path controllability analysis for high quality designs

Li-Jie Chen, Hong-Zu Chou, Kai-Hui Chang, Sy-Yen Kuo, Chi-Lai Huang

Abstract: Given a design variable and its fanin cone, determining whether one fanin variable has controlling power over other fanin variables can benefit many design steps such as verification, synthesis and test generation. In this work we formulate this path controllability problem and propose several algorithms that not only solve this problem but also return values that enable or block other fanin variables. Empirical results show that our algorithms can effectively perform path controllability analysis and help produce high-quality designs.