1. A method for emulating a circuit design in an electrically reconfigurable hardware emulation apparatus, the circuit design characterized by functional circuit components with circuit connections therebetween, the emulation apparatus including electrically reconfigurable devices with reprogrammable functional logic elements capable of performing the functions of the circuit components in the circuit design, the emulation apparatus also including reprogrammable electrically conductive paths capable of reconfigurably interconnecting selected electrically reconfigurable devices such that functional logic elements in one of the selected electrically reconfigurable devices can be electrically coupled to functional logic elements in another of the selected electrically reconfigurable devices, said method comprising the steps of: electronically generating a netlist description of the circuit components and circuit connections in the circuit design; partitioning said netlist description by algorithmically assigning the circuit components in said netlist description to partitions which respectively correspond to the selected electrically reconfigurable devices; routing said partitioned netlist description among the selected electrically reconfigurable devices by algorithmically assigning reprogrammable electrically conductive paths to interconnect the selected electrically reconfigurable devices so as to complete the circuit connections between the circuit components in said netlist description; and generating configuration information which programs functional logic elements in the selected electrically reconfigurable devices and reprogrammable electrically conductive paths to implement the circuit component functions and circuit connections of the circuit design as partitioned and routed in said partitioning and routing steps.