A DATABASE HAVING A HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE UTILIZED FOR DESIGNING SYSTEM-ON-CHIP INTEGRATED CIRCUIT DEVICES AND A METHOD OF DESIGNING THE SAME

When a circuit to be designed performs data transmit/receive behavior with other circuits such as a voice codec and a transmitter, not only the circuit to be designed but also the other circuits are provided with test clusters arranged in a hierarchical structure of a specification layer, an behavioral layer, and a function layer as in the VC cluster for the circuit to be designed. The test clusters include data describing the I/O relationship between the circuit to be designed and the other circuits in the specification layer, and data for activating sequence control in the other circuits in the behavioral layer. The VC cluster for the object to be designed includes test clusters for sequence control to be particularized in the function layer. Using the test clusters in the VC cluster, test clusters in the lower-level layer can be generated.