VLSI Design Methodologies

VLSI Design Methodologies

VLSI design flow is now a well-established and fully-developed methodology. Until date, the overall VLSI design flow, as well as the several processes within it, have shown to be both practical and resilient in multi-million dollar VLSI designs. Every phase of the VLSI design methodologies has its own specialised EDA tool that precisely covers all elements of the work at hand. Most crucially, all EDA tools can import and export several file types, allowing for a flexible VLSI design cycle that incorporates numerous vendors’ tools.

The VLSI design flow isn’t a simple procedure. To succeed in the VLSI design methodologies, you will need a solid and silicon-proven flow, a thorough grasp of the chip specs and restrictions, and complete command of the necessary EDA tools (and their reports).

This article provides a high-level overview of the VLSI design methodologies.

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VLSI System Design:

It is one of the most basic steps in the VLSI design methodology. It’s time to start thinking about architectural design now that your VLSI specifications have been finished and authorised by the various stakeholders. The whole chip functionality is broken down into little chunks with a clear grasp of the block implementation throughout the VLSI system design process.

Register Transfer Level (RTL):

This phase is the exact logic implementation of the whole VLSI design methodologies for digital VLSIs or digital blocks inside a mixed-signal semiconductor. The VHDL or Verilog language is used to translate the comprehensive system requirements. Functional verification is carried out in addition to the digital implementation to confirm that the RTL design adheres to the standards.

The RTL is then turned into a gate-level netlist once all of the blocks have been implemented and confirmed.

Synthesis:

The hardware description (RTL) is transformed to a gate-level netlist in this phase. This is accomplished using a synthesis tool that generates a gate-level netlist using a standard cell library, restrictions, and RTL code.

Different implementations are run using synthesis tools to generate the optimal gate level netlist that fits the restrictions. It takes into consideration power, speed, and size, thus the outcomes might be quite different. A check should be performed to ensure that the synthesis tool created the gate-level netlist accurately.

Layout:

The gate-level netlist is translated to a full physical geometric representation at this point. The first phase is floorplanning, which entails laying out the different blocks and I/O pads over the chip surface according to the design requirements. After that, physical parts are placed into each block, and analogue blocks or external IP cores are integrated. After all of the pieces have been installed, a global and thorough routing is conducted to link them together.

A comprehensive simulation is also necessary following this step to check that the layout phase is completed correctly. The layout’s output file is the GDSII (GDS2) file, which is the file used by the foundry to build the silicon.

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A summary of the processes involved in VLSI Design Methodologies are:

VLSI Design Methodologies include:

Logic Synthesis: The process of turning a high-level design description into an efficient gate-level representation is known as logic synthesis. Logic synthesis employs a common cell library that includes simple cells like and, or, and nor, as well as macro cells like adder, muxes, memory, and flip-flops.

Layout: The depiction of an integrated circuit in terms of planar geometric forms is known as IC layout that corresponds to the patterns of metal, oxide, or semiconductor layers that make up the components of the integrated circuit, also known as IC mask layout, or mask design.

Synthesis: Synthesis, in simple words, is the process of converting an abstract design into a correctly implemented chip in terms of logic gates. Synthesis is carried out in several stages: Taking RTL and turning it into basic logic gates; optimizing the mapped netlist while maintaining the designer’s restrictions

Block Level Layout: A block level design is a visual representation of all the functional components of your programme. Chips utilize all metal layers available, but blocks may not…. Chips are normally rectangular in form, although blocks might be rectangular or rectilinear.

VLSI Level Layout: VLSI layout is a method of combining a large number of circuits into a single integrated circuit. This design process begins with the creation of basic circuit blocks and their integration into a bigger system. A collection of circuit simulations is utilised to optimise each circuit block before VLSI architecture while creating circuit blocks.

Conclusion:

Market requirements, architecture design, logic design, HDL coding, and verification are the steps in the VLSI circuit design pipeline.

There are best VLSI training institutes that train you with the best VLSI Design methodologies and equip you with the essential skills required to enter into the VLSI sector. Chipedge, being one of the best VLSI training institutes in India, offers a wide variety of online VLSI courses that covers up VLSI methodologies as a whole. The courses include: VLSI Physical Design, ASIC Design Verification, Design for Testability (DFT), RTL Design course, Synthesis, Signoff STA and LEC.

Do enroll yourself in the VLSI training program here at VLSI training institute, Chipedge to get the best out of your learning career.

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