Embodiments relate to designing of integrated circuits using generation and instantiation of circuit stencils. The circuit stencil represents an abstracted version of the circuit segment. The circuit stencils include collapsed versions of the connectivity information of components and nodes of the integrated circuit. The collapsed version of the connectivity information is generated by analyzing functionality of the circuit segment and removing or replacing at least one redundant component or node of the circuit segment without modifying the functionality. The circuit stencil is used for instantiating or referencing components into a second integrated circuit.