VLSI Design Cycle

Evocation

Y CHART

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.
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Domains of y chart

The Y-chart (first introduced by D. Gajski) shown in the following figure illustrates a design flow for most logic chips, using design activities on

three different axes (domains) which resemble the letter Y.

The Y-chart consists of three major domains, namely: behavioral domain

All the specifications (input and output) are described at this level. This level completely ignores the hardware structure.. It simply treats the design like a black box.

structural domain,

The circuit is seen as a composition of sub circuits and the way which are interconnected.it has both domains ie both structural and behavioral. Eg: a NAND gate implementation using transistors.

geometrical layout domain.

It gives the information on how the subparts that can be in the structural domain are located in two dimensional plane eg a cell that may represent the layout of a logic gate will consists of mask patterns of transistors and interconnections

Y chart representation

VLSI Design cycle:

VLSI design cycle start with a formal specification of a VLSI chip, follows a series of steps, and eventually produces a packaged chip.

A simple VLSI design cycle:

1. System Specification 2. Functional design 3. Logic design 4. Circuit design 5. Physical design 6. Fabrication

7. Packaging, Testing and Debugging

VLSI Design Cycle

System Specification Circuit Design

Architectural Design

Physical Design

Functional Design

Fabrication

Logic Design

Packaging
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System Specification
1. First step of design process is to lay down the specification of the system. 2. High level representation of the system. 3. Factors considered: a) Performance b) Functionality c) Physical dimension d) Design technique e) Fabrication technology 4. It is a compromise between market requirements, technological and economical viability.
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System Specification contd.

The
end results are Size Speed Power and Functionality of the VLSI system

specifications of

1. 2. 3. 4.

5. Basic architecture of the system are also specified, such as

a) Floating point unit

b) RISC versus CISC system c) Number of ALUs

d) Number and structure of the pipelines

e) Size of the cache, etc.
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Functional Design
1. Main functional units of the system are identified
2. Identifies the interconnect requirements between the units 3. The area, power and other parameters of each unit are estimated 4. The behavioral aspects of the system are considered not implementation specification - multiplication needed but does not specify its hardware 5. The key idea is to specify behavior, in terms of a) Input

b) Output
c) Timing of each unit Without specifying the internal structure.
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Functional Design contd.

1. The outcome of functional design is usually a timing diagram or other relationships between units. 2. This information leads to improvement of the overall design process and reduction of complexity of the subsequent phases. 3. Functional design provides a quick emulation of the system and allows fast debugging of the full system.

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Logic Design
Design the logic, that is, 1. Boolean expressions, 2. control flow, 3. word width, 4. register allocation, etc.

X = (AB+CD)(E+F) Y= (A(B+C) + Z + D)

The outcome is called an RTL (Register Transfer Level) description. RTL is expressed in a HDL (Hardware Description Language), such as VHDL and Verilog. This description can be used in simulation and verification. As this description consists of Boolean expressions, so they can be minimized to achieve the smallest logic design.

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Circuit Design
The purpose of the circuit design is to develop a circuit representation based on the logic design. The Boolean expression can be converted into a circuit representation by taking into consideration the speed and power requirements of the original design. Design the circuit including gates, transistors, interconnections, etc. The outcome is called a netlist. Circuit simulation is used to verify the correctness and timing of component.

1.

2.

3.

4.

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Physical Design
1. 2.

The circuit representation of each component is converted into geometric representation. Convert the netlist into a geometric representation. The outcome is called a layout. Connections between different components are also expressed as a geometric pattern.

3.

4.
5. 6.

Exact details depends upon design rules

It is a complex process and usually broken down into substeps. Various verification and validation checks are performed on the layout during physical design.

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Fabrication

1.

Fabrication: Process includes lithography, polishing, deposition, diffusion, etc., to produce a chip. Fabrication process consists of several steps and requires various masks. Before the chip is mass produced, a prototype is made and tested.

2.

3.

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Packaging, Testing and Debugging

1.

Packaging Put together the chips on a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) or an MCM (Multi-Chip Module) Each chip is then packaged and tested to ensure that it meets all the design specifications and that it functions properly.

2.

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VLSI Design Cycle

System Specification
Architectural Design

Netlist
Physical Design

Architectural Specification
Functional Design

Circuit Design or Logic Synthesis

Layout
Fabrication

Timing & relationship between functional units

Logic Design

Chips
Packaging

RTL in HDL

Packaged and tested chips

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Physical Design Cycle

The input of the physical design cycle is a circuit diagram and the output is the layout of the circuit. Circuit Partitioning Floorplanning & Placement Routing Layout Compaction Extraction and Verification
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Circuit Partitioning
1.

A chip may contain several million transistors. So layout of the entire circuit can not be handled due to the limitation of memory space and computation power available.

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Circuit Partitioning contd.

2.
Partition a large circuit into sub-circuits (called blocks).

3. Factors like #blocks, block sizes, interconnection between blocks, etc., are considered. 4. The output of partitioning is a set of blocks and the interconnections between them. 5. Partitioning may be hierarchical.

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Floorplanning

This step is concerned with selecting good layout for each block as well as the entire chip. The area of each block can be estimated after partitioning based approximately on the number and type of components of that block. Interconnect area between blocks is also considered. Done by design engineer rather than CAD tools: human is better in visualization. Certain components are often required to be located at a specific position on the chip.

Deadspace
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Placement
1. 2.

The blocks are exactly positioned on the chip. The goal is to minimize the area arrangement for the blocks that allows completion of interconnections between the blocks while meeting the performance constraints. For example: routable blocks but fails timing goals.

Feedthrough Standard cell type 1 Standard cell type 2

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Placement contd.
1.

2.

3. 4.

Two phases: initial placement is created in the first phase. In second phase, initial placement is evaluated and iterative improvements are made until the layout has minimum area. Quality of placement will not be evident until the routing phase has been completed. Placement may lead to an un routable design: More space may be needed. Good routing and circuit performance heavily depends on a good placement algorithm. This is due to the fact that after the position of the block has been fixed, routing can do nothing.

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Routing
1.

2. 3.

Objectives is to complete the interconnections between modules. Routing space is partitioned into channels and switchboxes. Two phases : global routing and detailed routing.

Feedthrough Type 1 standard cel1 Type 2 standard cell

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Global routing (GR)

1. In global routing, connections are completed between proper blocks of the circuit disregarding exact geometric details of each wire and pin. 2. For each wire GR finds a lists of channels which are to be used as a passageways for that wire. In other words, GR specifies different regions in the routing space through which a wire should be routed.

Detailed routing (DR)

DR completes point-to-point connections between pins on the blocks. GR is converted into exact routing by specifying geometric information such as location and spacing of wires and their layer assignments. It includes channel and switchbox routing.
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Compaction & Verification

Compaction Compress the layout from all directions to
1. 2. 3.

minimize the total chip area. Advantages: Making chip smaller, wire lengths are reduced. Reduces signal delays. More chip on a small area, so manufacturing cost reduced.

But should ensure design rules. Verification Check the correctness of the layout. Include DRC (Design Rule Checking), circuit extraction (generate a circuit from the layout to compare with the original netlist), performance verification, reliability

verification.

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Review Physical Design

The final physical layout of a complicated circuit on a small piece of silicon is generated in a set of steps using CAD tools

Partitioning K-L and F-M Algorithms Placement/ Floorplanning

Break the circuit up into smaller segments

Constructive & K-L Algorithms

Routing

Place the segments on the chip

Layout out the wire paths

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