Design flows are the explicit combination of
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 wo ...
tools to accomplish the design of an
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 a ...
.
Moore's law
Moore's law is the observation that the Transistor count, number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and Forecasting, projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of ...
has driven the entire
IC implementation
RTL to
GDSII design flows from one which uses primarily stand-alone
synthesis
Synthesis or synthesize may refer to:
Science Chemistry and biochemistry
*Chemical synthesis, the execution of chemical reactions to form a more complex molecule from chemical precursors
**Organic synthesis, the chemical synthesis of organi ...
,
placement, and
routing
Routing is the process of selecting a path for traffic in a Network theory, network or between or across multiple networks. Broadly, routing is performed in many types of networks, including circuit-switched networks, such as the public switched ...
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 of separate design steps to a fully integrated approach, and what further changes are coming to address the latest challenges. In his keynote at the 40th
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 desig ...
entitle
The Tides of EDA Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli distinguished three periods of EDA:
* ''The Age of Invention'': During the invention era,
routing
Routing is the process of selecting a path for traffic in a Network theory, network or between or across multiple networks. Broadly, routing is performed in many types of networks, including circuit-switched networks, such as the public switched ...
,
placement,
static timing analysis and
logic synthesis were invented.
* ''The Age of Implementation'': In the age of implementation, these steps were drastically improved by designing sophisticated data structures and advanced algorithms. This allowed the tools in each of these design steps to keep pace with the rapidly increasing design sizes. However, due to the lack of good predictive cost functions, it became impossible to execute a design flow by a set of discrete steps, no matter how efficiently each of the steps was implemented.
* ''The Age of Integration'': This led to the age of integration where most of the design steps are performed in an integrated environment, driven by a set of incremental cost analyzers.
There are differences between the steps and methods of the design flow for analog and digital integrated circuits. Nonetheless, a typical
VLSI design flow consists of various steps like design conceptualization, chip optimization, logical/physical implementation, and design validation and verification.
See also
*
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. ...
, creates the physical infrastructure into which the design is placed and routed
*
Placement (EDA)
Placement is an essential step in electronic design automation — the portion of the physical design
flow that assigns exact locations for various circuit components within the chip's core area. An inferior placement assignment will not only aff ...
, an essential step in Electronic Design Automation (EDA)
*
Routing (EDA), a crucial step in the design of integrated circuits
*
Power optimization (EDA), the use of EDA tools to optimize (reduce) the power consumption of a digital design, while preserving its functionality
*
Post-silicon validation, the final step in the EDA design flow
References
* ''Electronic Design Automation For Integrated Circuits Handbook'', by Lavagno, Martin, and Scheffer, – A survey of the field, from which this summary was derived, with permission.
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Digital electronics
Electronic design automation
Electronics optimization