Methods and apparatuses to design and analyze digital circuits with time
division multiplexing. At least one embodiment of the present invention efficiently
models subsystems connected by a TDM channel by introducing equivalent delays in
the connections for the subsystems, where the delays are determined according to
the upper bounds of the delays caused by the TDM channel. The TDM channel is modeled
with its equivalent delays. Thus, a transformation tool is allowed to take into
account the original constraints and time budgeting of the sending subsystem and
the receiving subsystem. The problem of asynchronous clock domains is eliminated;
and, simulation time of the multiplexed circuit is also improved. In some embodiments
of the present invention, multiple TDM slots are assigned to a particular signal
to reduce the equivalent connection delay caused by the TDM channel for the particular
signal. In some embodiments of the present invention, timing simulation is performed
using the equivalent delays to avoid the simulation of the TDM hardware; and, the
simulation time step does not have to be reduced due to asynchronous clock, resulting
in reduced simulation time.