METHOD FOR EXTRACTING CIRCUIT CONNECTION INFORMATION FROM INTEGRATED CIRCUIT MASK PATTERN

PURPOSE:To provide a method capable of extracting desired circuit connection information in a short processing time by performing an efficient arithmetic operation. CONSTITUTION:Integrated circuit mask patterns are digitized and fetched as digital data (S1), a specific cell is specified on the integrated circuit mask pattern (S2), respective text names are imparted to the respective terminals of the specified cell for connecting to the outside of the cell so as to impart the same text name to the terminals to be at the some potential and at the same time, the position information of the respective terminals is extracted (S3). The circuit connection information is extracted with the mask pattern present in the outside of the specified cell and the respective terminals imparted with the text names as objects (S4) and the circuit connection information is corrected so as to secure mutually conducted connection relations for the plural terminals imparted with the same text name in the extracted circuit connection information (S5).