Introduction to VLSI Design

Amit Kumar MishraECE DepartmentIIT Guwahati

Tale of two queries!

Y R U here? Y M I here?

Landmarks

Moore’s axiom Some more funda Free CAD tool Parting notes

Moore’s Law

Gordon Moore: co-founder of Intel Predicted that the number of transistors

per chip would grow exponentially (double every 18 months)

Exponential improvement in technology is a natural trend: e.g. Steam Engines - Dynamo - Automobile

Moore’s Law

1

10

100

1K

10K

100K

1M

10M

1975 1980 1985 1990 1995

Transistors

10x/6 years

808668000

6802080386

80486

68040

80804004

Pentium ProPentium

PPC601

PPC603

MIPS R4000

Microprocessors

[©Keutzer]

IC Products Processors

CPU, DSP, Controllers Memory chips

RAM, ROM, EEPROM Analog

Mobile communication,audio/video processing

Programmable PLA, FPGA

Embedded systems Used in cars, factories Network cards

System-on-chip (SoC)

Images: amazon.com

IC Product Market Shares

Source: Electronic Business

Example: Intel Processor Sizes

Source: http://www.intel.com/

Intel386TM DXProcessor

Intel486TM DXProcessor

Pentium® Processor

Pentium® Pro &Pentium® II Processors

1.5 1.0 0.8 0.6 0.35 0.25Silicon ProcessTechnology

Heterogeneity on Chip Greater diversity of on chip elements

Processors Software Memory Analog

[©Keutzer]

More transistors doing different things!

Heterogeneity

Stronger Market Pressures

Decreasing design window Less tolerance for design

revisions

[©Keutzer]

Time-to-market

Exponentially more complex, greater design risk, greater variety, and a smaller design

window!

VLSI Design Styles

Full Custom Application-Specific Integrated Circuit

(ASIC) Programmable Logic (PLD, FPGA) System-on-a-Chip

Full Custom Design

Each circuit element carefully “handcrafted” Huge design effort High Design & NRE Costs / Low Unit Cost High Performance Typically used for high-volume applications

ASIC

Constrained design using pre-designed (and sometimes pre-manufactured) components

Also called semi-custom design CAD tools greatly reduce design effort Low Design Cost / High NRE Cost / Med. Unit

Cost Medium Performance

Programmable Logic (FPGA)

Pre-manufactured components with programmable interconnect

CAD tools greatly reduce design effort Low Design Cost / Low NRE Cost / High Unit

Cost Lower Performance

System-on-chip (SOC)

Idea: combine several large blocks Predesigned custom cores (e.g., microcontroller) -

“intellectual property” (IP) ASIC logic for special-purpose hardware Programmable Logic (PLD, FPGA) Analog

Open issues Keeping design cost low Verifying correctness of design

The Inverted Pyramid

[©Keutzer]

Electronic Systems > $1 Trillion

Semiconductor > $220 B

CAD $3 B

Where is the money?

Gaps to be filled:System-semiconductor gapSemiconductor-CAD gap

A free CAD flow for all who care!

Alliance CAD tools "Architecture des Systèmes intégrés et

Micro électronique" department of LIP6 875 000 Transistor design done Limit is your processor power and your

design abilities!

Scenario in India???

HUGE outsourcing Loads of startups (WHY?) VLSI design is nowhere a single nation job Fabrication labs (fabs) in USA getting sold

out India getting 4 fabs by next year!

Thank You

Best of Luck for End-Sems and Internships