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Design Flow
Design flows are the explicit combination of electronic design automation tools to accomplish the design of an integrated circuit. Moore's law has driven the entire IC implementation RTL to GDSII design flows from one which uses primarily stand-alone synthesis, placement, and routing algorithms to an integrated construction and analysis flows for design closure. The challenges of rising interconnect delay led to a new way of thinking about and integrating design closure tools. The RTL to GDSII flow underwent significant changes from 1980 through 2005. The continued scaling of CMOS technologies significantly changed the objectives of the various design steps. The lack of good predictors for delay has led to significant changes in recent design flows. New scaling challenges such as leakage power, variability, and reliability will continue to require significant changes to the design closure process in the future. Many factors describe what drove the design flow from a set o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electronic Design Automation
Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing Electronics, electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools work together in a Design flow (EDA), design flow that chip designers use to design and analyze entire semiconductor chips. Since a modern semiconductor chip can have billions of components, EDA tools are essential for their design; this article in particular describes EDA specifically with respect to integrated circuits (ICs). History Early days The earliest electronic design automation is attributed to IBM with the documentation of its IBM 700/7000 series, 700 series computers in the 1950s. Prior to the development of EDA, integrated circuits were designed by hand and manually laid out. Some advanced shops used geometric software to generate tapes for a Gerber format, Gerber photoplotter, responsible for generating a monochromatic ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Design Automation Conference
The Design Automation Conference (DAC - The chips to systems conference) is an annual event that combines a technical conference with a trade show. It focuses on semiconductor and electronic system design, covering topics such as electronic design automation (EDA), artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and AI-driven algorithms for hardware design, system on chip (SoC) architecture, low-power electronics, design for manufacturability (DFM), hardware security, physical design, IP cores, chiplets, and embedded systems. Program In 2024 DAC received 1545 research paper submissions. A technical program committee of 266 domain experts performed a double-blind review, selecting 337 papers (22%) for publication in the proceedings. DAC also includes an Engineering Track for industry professionals and technical managers. This track addresses front-end design, back-end design, IP, and embedded systems and software. Submissions to the Engineering Track undergo a separate peer-re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digital Electronics
Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. It deals with the relationship between Binary number, binary inputs and outputs by passing electrical signals through Logic gate, logical gates, Resistor, resistors, Capacitor, capacitors, Amplifier, amplifiers, and other Electronic component, electrical components. The field of digital electronics is in contrast to analog electronics which work primarily with analog signals (signals with varying degrees of intensity as opposed to on/off two state binary signals). Despite the name, digital electronics designs include important analog design considerations. Large assemblies of logic gates, used to represent more complex ideas, are often packaged into integrated circuits. Complex devices may have simple electronic representations of Boolean logic#Digital electronic circuit design, Boolean logic functions. History The binary number system was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post-silicon Validation
{{no footnotes, date=July 2011 Post-silicon validation and debug is the last step in the development of a semiconductor integrated circuit. Pre-silicon process During the pre-silicon process, engineers test devices in a virtual environment with sophisticated simulation, emulation, and formal verification tools. In contrast, post-silicon validation tests occur on actual devices running at-speed in commercial, real-world system boards using logic analyzer and assertion-based tools. Reasoning Large semiconductor companies spend millions creating new components; these are the " sunk costs" of design implementation. Consequently, it is imperative that the new chip function in full and perfect compliance to its specification, and be delivered to the market within tight consumer windows. Even a delay of a few weeks can cost tens of millions of dollars. Post-silicon validation is therefore one of the most highly leveraged steps in successful design implementation. Validation Chips ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Optimization (EDA)
Power optimization is the use of electronic design automation tools to optimize (reduce) the power consumption of a digital design, such as that of an integrated circuit, while preserving the functionality. Introduction and history The increasing speed and complexity of today’s designs implies a significant increase in the power consumption of very-large-scale integration (VLSI) chips. To meet this challenge, researchers have developed many different design techniques to reduce power. The complexity of today’s ICs, with over 100 million transistors, clocked at over 1 GHz, means manual power optimization would be hopelessly slow and all too likely to contain errors. Computer-aided design (CAD) tools and methodologies are mandatory. One of the key features that led to the success of complementary metal-oxide semiconductor, or CMOS, technology was its intrinsic low-power consumption. This meant that circuit designers and electronic design automation (EDA) tools could affo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floorplan (microelectronics)
In electronic design automation, a floorplan of an integrated circuit consists of a schematic arrangement of its major functional blocks on the chip area and the specification of high-level parameters such as the aspect ratio or core utilization. The design step in which floorplans are created is called floorplanning, an early stage in the Design flow (EDA), design flow for integrated circuit design. Various mathematical abstractions of this problem have been studied. Floorplanning design stage The floorplanning design stage consists of various steps with the aim of finding floorplans that allow a Timing closure, timing-clean routing and spread power consumption over the whole chip. *Chip Area Estimation: The dimensions and aspect ratio of the chip area are determined. The estimation considers the space required to place macros, standard cells and I/O ports while also leaving enough space for routing resources to enable a successful Place and route, place and route design fl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Very Large Scale Integration
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Static Timing Analysis
Static timing analysis (STA) is a simulation method of computing the expected timing of a synchronous digital circuit without requiring a simulation of the full circuit. High-performance integrated circuits have traditionally been characterized by the clock frequency at which they operate. Measuring the ability of a circuit to operate at the specified speed requires an ability to measure, during the design process, its delay at numerous steps. Moreover, delay calculation must be incorporated into the inner loop of timing optimizers at various phases of design, such as logic synthesis, layout ( placement and routing), and in in-place optimizations performed late in the design cycle. While such timing measurements can theoretically be performed using a rigorous circuit simulation, such an approach is liable to be too slow to be practical. Static timing analysis plays a vital role in facilitating the fast and reasonably accurate measurement of circuit timing. The speedup come ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli
Alberto Luigi Sangiovanni-Vincentelli (born June 23, 1947) is an Italian-American computer scientist. Since 1976 he has been a professor affiliated with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. While working at UC Berkeley in the 1980s, he co-founded Cadence Design Systems and Synopsys, two EDA companies. He currently sits on the board of Cadence Design. Early life and education Alberto Luigi Sangiovanni-Vincentelli was born on June 23, 1947 in Milan, Italy. He received his Master of Science degree in engineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan in 1971, with a specialty in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS). Career After graduating in 1971 from the Polytechnic University of Milan, Sangiovanni Vincentelli stayed on at the university in a research post. In 1976, he moved to University of California at Berkeley, where he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Scienc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Design Closure
Design Closure is a part of the digital electronic design automation workflow by which an integrated circuit (i.e. VLSI) design is modified from its initial description to meet a growing list of design constraints and objectives. Every step in the IC design (such as static timing analysis, placement, routing, and so on) is already complex and often forms its own field of study. This article, however, looks at the overall design closure process, which takes a chip from its initial design state to the final form in which all of its design constraints are met. Introduction Every chip starts off as someone’s idea of a good thing: "If we can make a part that performs function X, we will all be rich!" Once the concept is established, someone from marketing says "To make this chip profitably, it must cost $C and run at frequency F." Someone from manufacturing says "To meet this chip’s targets, it must have a yield of Y%." Someone from packaging says “It must fit in the P pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Integrated Circuit
An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components are etched onto a small, flat piece ("chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Integrated circuits are used in a wide range of electronic devices, including computers, smartphones, and televisions, to perform various functions such as processing and storing information. They have greatly impacted the field of electronics by enabling device miniaturization and enhanced functionality. Integrated circuits are orders of magnitude smaller, faster, and less expensive than those constructed of discrete components, allowing a large transistor count. The IC's mass production capability, reliability, and building-block approach to integrated circuit design have ensured the rapid adoption of standardized ICs in place of designs using discre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Routing (EDA)
In electronic design, wire routing, commonly called simply routing, is a step in the design of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and integrated circuits (ICs). It builds on a preceding step, called placement (electronic design automation), placement, which determines the location of each active element of an IC or component on a PCB. After placement, the routing step adds wires needed to properly connect the placed components while obeying all design rules for the IC. Together, the placement and routing steps of IC design are known as place and route. The task of all routers is the same. They are given some pre-existing polygons consisting of pin (electronics), pins (also called terminals) on cells, and optionally some pre-existing wiring called preroutes. Each of these polygons are associated with a net (electronics), net, usually by name or number. The primary task of the router is to create geometries such that all terminals assigned to the same net are connected, no terminals a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
