2 VLSI Design Flow

The design process, at various levels, is usually evolutionary in nature. It starts with a given set of requirements. Initial design is developed and tested against the requirements. When requirements are not met, the design has to be improved. If such improvement is either not possible or too costly, then the revision of requirements and its impact analysis must be considered. The Y-chart (first introduced by . !a"s#i$ shown in %ig. &.' illustrates a design flow for most logic chips, using design activities on three different a(es (domains$ which resemble the letter Y.

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Figure-1.4: Typical ,-.I design flow in three domains (Y-chart representation$. The Y-chart consists of three ma"or domains, namely/

behavioral domain, structural domain, geometrical layout domain.

The design flow starts from the algorithm that describes the behavior of the target chip. The corresponding architecture of the processor is first defined. It is mapped onto the chip surface by floorplanning. The ne(t design evolution in the behavioral domain defines finite state machines (%.0s$ which are structurally implemented with functional modules such as registers and arithmetic logic units (1-2s$. These modules are then geometrically placed onto the chip surface using *1 tools for automatic module placement followed by routing, with a goal of minimi3ing the interconnects area and signal delays. The third evolution starts with a behavioral module description. Individual

modules are then implemented with leaf cells. 1t this stage the chip is described in terms of logic gates (leaf cells$, which can be placed and interconnected by using a cell placement 4 routing program. The last evolution involves a detailed 5oolean description of leaf cells followed by a transistor level implementation of leaf cells and mas# generation. In standard-cell based design, leaf cells are already pre-designed and stored in a library for logic design use.

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Figure-1.5: 1 more simplified view of ,-.I design flow. %igure &.6 provides a more simplified view of the ,-.I design flow, ta#ing into account the various representations, or abstractions of design - behavioral, logic, circuit and mas# layout. 7ote that the verification of design plays a very important role in every step during this process. The failure to properly verify a design in its early phases typically causes significant and e(pensive re-design at a later stage, which ultimately increases the time-to-mar#et. 1lthough the design process has been described in linear fashion for simplicity, in reality there are many iterations bac# and forth, especially between any two neighboring steps, and occasionally even remotely separated pairs. 1lthough top-down design flow provides an e(cellent design process control, in reality, there is no truly unidirectional top-down

design flow. 5oth top-down and bottom-up approaches have to be combined. %or instance, if a chip designer defined an architecture without close estimation of the corresponding chip area, then it is very li#ely that the resulting chip layout e(ceeds the area limit of the available technology. In such a case, in order to fit the architecture into the allowable chip area, some functions may have to be removed and the design process must be repeated. .uch changes may require significant modification of the original requirements. Thus, it is very important to feed forward low-level information to higher levels (bottom up$ as early as possible. In the following, we will e(amine design methodologies and structured approaches which have been developed over the years to deal with both comple( hardware and software pro"ects. 8egardless of the actual si3e of the pro"ect, the basic principles of structured design will improve the prospects of success. .ome of the classical techniques for reducing the comple(ity of I* design are/ 9ierarchy, regularity, modularity and locality.

1.5.4 Full Custom Design

1lthough the standard-cells based design is often called full custom design, in a strict sense, it is somewhat less than fully custom since the cells are pre-designed for general use and the same cells are utili3ed in many different chip designs. In a fuller custom design, the entire mas# design is done anew without use of any library. 9owever, the development cost of such a design style is becoming prohibitively high. Thus, the concept of design reuse is becoming popular in order to reduce design cycle time and development cost. The most rigorous full custom design can be the design of a memory cell, be it static or dynamic. .ince the same layout design is replicated, there would not be any alternative to high density memory chip design. %or logic chip design, a good compromise can be achieved by using a combination of different design styles on the same chip, such as standard cells, data-path cells and :-1s. In real full-custom layout in which the geometry, orientation and placement of every transistor is done individually by the designer, design productivity is usually very low - typically &; to <; transistors per day, per designer. In digital *0=. ,-.I, full-custom design is rarely used due to the high labor cost. >(ceptions to this include the design of high-volume products such as memory chips, high- performance microprocessors and %:!1 masters. %igure &.<6 shows the full layout of the Intel '?@ microprocessor chip, which is a good e(ample of a hybrid full-custom design. 9ere, one can identify four different design styles on one chip/ 0emory ban#s (810 cache$, data-path units consisting of bit-slice cells, control circuitry mainly consisting of standard cells and :-1 bloc#s.

1.5.1 Field Programmable

ate !rra" #FP !$

%ully fabricated %:!1 chips containing thousands of logic gates or even more, with programmable interconnects, are available to users for their custom hardware

programming to reali3e desired functionality. This design style provides a means for fast prototyping and also for cost-effective chip design, especially for low-volume applications. 1 typical field programmable gate array (%:!1$ chip consists of IA= buffers, an array of configurable logic bloc#s (*-5s$, and programmable interconnect structures. The programming of the interconnects is implemented by programming of 810 cells whose output terminals are connected to the gates of 0=. pass transistors. 1 general architecture of %:!1 from BI-I7B is shown in %ig. &.&<. 1 more detailed view showing the locations of switch matrices used for interconnect routing is given in %ig. &.&C. 1 simple *-5 (model B*<;;; from BI-I7B$ is shown in %ig. &.&'. It consists of four signal input terminals (1, 5, *, $, a cloc# signal terminal, user-programmable multiple(ers, an .8-latch, and a loo#-up table (-2T$. The -2T is a digital memory that stores the truth table of the 5oolean function. Thus, it can generate any function of up to four variables or any two functions of three variables. The control terminals of multiple(ers are not shown e(plicitly in %ig. &.&'. The *-5 is configured such that many different logic functions can be reali3ed by programming its array. 0ore sophisticated *-5s have also been introduced to map comple( functions. The typical design flow of an %:!1 chip starts with the behavioral description of its functionality, using a hardware description language such as ,9 -. The synthesi3ed architecture is then technology-mapped (or partitioned$ into circuits or logic cells. 1t this stage, the chip design is completely described in terms of available logic cells. 7e(t, the placement and routing step assigns individual logic cells to %:!1 sites (*-5s$ and determines the routing patterns among the cells in accordance with the netlist. 1fter routing is completed, the on-chip

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Figure-1.12: !eneral architecture of Bilin( %:!1s.

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Figure-1.1%: etailed view of switch matrices and interconnection routing between *-5s.

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Figure-1.14: B*<;;; *-5 of the Bilin( %:!1. performance of the design can be simulated and verified before downloading the design for programming of the %:!1 chip. The programming of the chip remains valid as long as the chip is powered-on, or until new programming is done. In most cases, full utili3ation of the %:!1 chip area is not possible - many cell sites may remain unused. The largest advantage of %:!1-based design is the very short turn-around time, i.e., the time required from the start of the design process until a functional chip is available. .ince no physical manufacturing step is necessary for customi3ing the %:!1 chip, a functional sample can be obtained almost as soon as the design is mapped into a specific technology. The typical price of %:!1 chips are usually higher than other reali3ation alternatives (such as gate array or standard cells$ of the same design, but for smallvolume production of 1.I* chips and for fast prototyping, %:!1 offers a very valuable option.