VLSI DESIGN FLOW

M.Sharath Kanth
Sr. Application Engineer.
Entuple Technologies Pvt. Ltd
sharath.kanth@entuple.com

Entuple Technologies Pvt. Ltd

CONFIDENTIAL
 Agenda

 Custom IC Design flow using Cadence EDA

tools
 ASIC Design flow
 Analog & Mixed Signal Design flow (Optional
– If time permits)

Entuple Technologies Pvt. Ltd

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 Integrated Circuits

Full-Custom Semi-Custom User

ASICs ASICs Programmable

PLD FPGA

PAL PLA PML LUT MUX Registers

(Look-Up Table)
Two competing implementation
approaches
ASIC
Application Specific
Integrated Circuit
• designs must be sent
for expensive and time
consuming fabrication
in semiconductor foundry
• designed all the way
from behavioral description
to physical layout
FPGA
Field Programmable
Gate Array
• bought off the shelf
and reconfigured by
designers themselves
• no physical layout design;
design ends with
a bitstream used
to configure a device
What are ASICs ?

. (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) Pronounced

"a-sick." A chip that is custom designed for a specific
application rather than a general-purpose chip such as a
microprocessor. The use of ASICs improve performance
over general-purpose CPUs, because ASICs are
"hardwired" to do a specific job and do not incur the
overhead of fetching and interpreting stored instructions.
However, a standard cell ASIC may include one or more
microprocessor cores and embedded software, in which
case, it may be referred to as a "system on a chip" (SoC).
What are FPGAs ?

Field Programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are

digital integrated circuits (Ics) that contain
configurable (Programmable) blocks of logic
along with configurable interconnects between
these blocks .Design engineers can
configure(Program) such devices to perform a
tremendous variety of tasks.
What is an FPGA?

Configurable
Logic
Blocks
Block RAMs

Block RAMs
I/O
Blocks

Block
RAMs
 ASICs FPGAs

Off-the-shelf
High performance
Low development cost
Low power
Short time to market
Low cost in
high volumes Reconfigurability
Other FPGA Advantages
 Manufacturing cycle for ASIC is very costly,
lengthy and engages lots of manpower
 Mistakes not detected at design time have large
impact on development time and cost
 FPGAs are perfect for rapid prototyping of digital
circuits
 Easy upgrades like in case of software
 Unique applications
 reconfigurable computing
Major FPGA Vendors

SRAM-based FPGAs
 Xilinx, Inc.
 Altera Corp.
 Atmel
 Lattice Semiconductor

Flash & antifuse FPGAs

 Actel Corp.
 Design Methodologies

 Full Custom Design

 Semi Custom Design

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 START
CIC Flow
Schematic Virtuoso Schematic
Entry Editor/Composer

Simulation Multi-Mode
Simulator / Spectre
Backannotation

Virtuoso Layout Suite

Layout VLE/VXL

Physical Verification
DRC/LVS Assura

RC-Extraction Quantus RC / PVS

GDS II Virtuoso
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 ASIC FLOW
START

FLOORPLANNING
SPECIFICATON

Encounter/ Innovus®/
POWER PLANNING
RTL CODING
NC SIM /
Incisive®

PLACEMENT
FUNCTIONAL
SIMULATION
CTS
Encounter® RTL Compiler

SYTHESIS ROUTING

DRC/LVS
Genus

TIMING SIMULATION

ASSURA®
/

XRC

DFT
GDS II 15
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Full Custom Vs Semi Custom

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 Virtuoso PDKs

GPDK:
Generic Process Design Kit
(software)
•GPDK 180
•GPDK 90
•GPDK 45 ….

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THANK YOU

Entuple Technologies Pvt. Ltd

CONFIDENTIAL