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 D. Gajski) shown in Fig. 1.4 illustrates a design flow for most logic chips, using design activities on three different axes (domains) which resemble the letter Y.
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Figure-1.4: Typical VLSI design flow in three domains (Y-chart representation). The Y-chart consists of three major 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 next design evolution in the behavioral domain defines finite state machines (FSMs) which are structurally implemented with functional modules such as registers and arithmetic logic units (ALUs). These modules are then geometrically placed onto the chip surface using CAD tools for automatic module placement followed by routing, with a goal of minimizing the interconnects area and signal delays. The third evolution starts with a behavioral module description. Individual
modules are then implemented with leaf cells. At this stage the chip is described in terms of logic gates (leaf cells), which can be placed and interconnected by using a cell placement & routing program. The last evolution involves a detailed Boolean description of leaf cells followed by a transistor level implementation of leaf cells and mask 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: A more simplified view of VLSI design flow. Figure 1.5 provides a more simplified view of the VLSI design flow, taking into account the various representations, or abstractions of design - behavioral, logic, circuit and mask layout. Note 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 expensive re-design at a later stage, which ultimately increases the time-to-market. Although the design process has been described in linear fashion for simplicity, in reality there are many iterations back and forth, especially between any two neighboring steps, and occasionally even remotely separated pairs. Although top-down design flow provides an excellent design process control, in reality, there is no truly unidirectional top-down
design flow. Both top-down and bottom-up approaches have to be combined. For instance, if a chip designer defined an architecture without close estimation of the corresponding chip area, then it is very likely that the resulting chip layout exceeds 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. Such 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 examine design methodologies and structured approaches which have been developed over the years to deal with both complex hardware and software projects. Regardless of the actual size of the project, the basic principles of structured design will improve the prospects of success. Some of the classical techniques for reducing the complexity of IC design are: Hierarchy, regularity, modularity and locality.
1.5.4 Full Custom Design
Although 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 utilized in many different chip designs. In a fuller custom design, the entire mask design is done anew without use of any library. However, 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. Since the same layout design is replicated, there would not be any alternative to high density memory chip design. For 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 PLAs. 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 10 to 20 transistors per day, per designer. In digital CMOS VLSI, full-custom design is rarely used due to the high labor cost. Exceptions to this include the design of high-volume products such as memory chips, high- performance microprocessors and FPGA masters. Figure 1.25 shows the full layout of the Intel 486 microprocessor chip, which is a good example of a hybrid full-custom design. Here, one can identify four different design styles on one chip: Memory banks (RAM cache), data-path units consisting of bit-slice cells, control circuitry mainly consisting of standard cells and PLA blocks.
1.5.1 Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)
Fully fabricated FPGA chips containing thousands of logic gates or even more, with programmable interconnects, are available to users for their custom hardware
programming to realize desired functionality. This design style provides a means for fast prototyping and also for cost-effective chip design, especially for low-volume applications. A typical field programmable gate array (FPGA) chip consists of I/O buffers, an array of configurable logic blocks (CLBs), and programmable interconnect structures. The programming of the interconnects is implemented by programming of RAM cells whose output terminals are connected to the gates of MOS pass transistors. A general architecture of FPGA from XILINX is shown in Fig. 1.12. A more detailed view showing the locations of switch matrices used for interconnect routing is given in Fig. 1.13. A simple CLB (model XC2000 from XILINX) is shown in Fig. 1.14. It consists of four signal input terminals (A, B, C, D), a clock signal terminal, user-programmable multiplexers, an SR-latch, and a look-up table (LUT). The LUT is a digital memory that stores the truth table of the Boolean function. Thus, it can generate any function of up to four variables or any two functions of three variables. The control terminals of multiplexers are not shown explicitly in Fig. 1.14. The CLB is configured such that many different logic functions can be realized by programming its array. More sophisticated CLBs have also been introduced to map complex functions. The typical design flow of an FPGA chip starts with the behavioral description of its functionality, using a hardware description language such as VHDL. The synthesized architecture is then technology-mapped (or partitioned) into circuits or logic cells. At this stage, the chip design is completely described in terms of available logic cells. Next, the placement and routing step assigns individual logic cells to FPGA sites (CLBs) and determines the routing patterns among the cells in accordance with the netlist. After routing is completed, the on-chip
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Figure-1.12: General architecture of Xilinx FPGAs.
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Figure-1.13: Detailed view of switch matrices and interconnection routing between CLBs.
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Figure-1.14: XC2000 CLB of the Xilinx FPGA. performance of the design can be simulated and verified before downloading the design for programming of the FPGA 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 utilization of the FPGA chip area is not possible - many cell sites may remain unused. The largest advantage of FPGA-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. Since no physical manufacturing step is necessary for customizing the FPGA chip, a functional sample can be obtained almost as soon as the design is mapped into a specific technology. The typical price of FPGA chips are usually higher than other realization alternatives (such as gate array or standard cells) of the same design, but for smallvolume production of ASIC chips and for fast prototyping, FPGA offers a very valuable option.