Techniques and mechanisms provide various representations and/or the
ability to control component interconnections in an electronic design.
For example, virtual representations, which may be combined with physical
representations, of actual hardware connections between components of an
electronic design are provided. A virtual port is generally mapped to a
hidden physical port, which corresponds to an actual hardware port of a
particular component. The virtual port may be mapped to multiple hidden
physical ports or mapped to a single hidden physical port shared by
another virtual port. The mapping may also take into account various
constraints (e.g., functionalities supported by the components selected
for connection; burst data transfers; prefetchable memory reads; etc.) to
allow for efficient control and/or presentation of interconnection
information. Based on the mappings, components can be automatically
connected. As such, the creation and understanding of an electronic
design is made easier and clearer to the user.