The document presents a comprehensive overview of VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) design, covering both front-end and back-end processes crucial for creating efficient electronic systems. It details the design flow, including idea specification, RTL coding, synthesis, and verification, as well as tools and methodologies used in these phases. Additionally, the document explores the importance of synthesis verification, place & route, static timing analysis, and post-layout verification in the physical implementation of integrated circuits.

1. A
Presentation
On
VLSI Design
( Front End & Back End )

2. Contents
 VLSI Design
 VLSI Design Flow
 Ideas
 Specifications
 Design Architecture
 RTL Coding
 HDL
 Difference Between VHDL &
Verilog
 RTL Verification
 RTL Verification Wave Form
 Synthesis
 FPGA Kit
 Foundry
 IC Chip
 Front End
 Back End
 Synthesis
 Synthesis Verification
 Place & Route
 Place & Route Steps
 Parasitic Extraction
 Static Timing Analysis
 Post Layout Verification
 Application Of VLSI

3. Introduction : VLSI Design
 A VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) system integrates millions of “electronic
components” in a small area (few mm2  few cm2).
 design “efficient” VLSI systems that has:
 Circuit Speed ( high )
 Power consumption ( low )
 Design Area ( low )

4. VLSI : Design Flow
1. idea (need) 2. specifications 3. design
architecture
4. RTL coding
5. RTL
Verification6. Synthesis
7.Foundry8.IC Chip

5. Ideas
• Microprocessor
• Microcontroller
• Memories
• Printer
• Mobile
• Digital security lock
Any thing we needs chip

6. Specifications
 This is the crucial step as it will affect the future of the product. Here, vendors
may want to get feedback from potential customers on what they are looking
for
 Instruction set
 Interface (I/O pins)
 Organization of the system
 Functionality of each unit in the system, and how to communicate it to
other units.

7. Design architecture
EDA Tools :
• Synopsys – astro
• Active hdl
• Xilinx - ise design suite
• Cadence - encounter digital ic design
 This is where the main work starts. With the help of the specification sheet the
target IC’s architecture is decided and a layout for same is created by design
engineers using EDA tools.

9. RTL coding
RTL coding tools
 RTL - register transfer level.
 This implies that the VHDL/VERILOG code written based on the architecture
describes how data is transformed as it is passed from register to register.
 xilinx ise
 Vim
 Emacs
 conTEXT
 HDL TurboWriter

10. HDL – Hardware Description Language
ƒ A programming language that can describe the functionality and timing
of the hardware.
Types of HDL
 VHDL ( Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description
Language )
 VERILOG
 System VERILOG

11. Difference Between VHDL & VERILOG
VHDL
 Not case sensitive.
 Difficult to learn.
 Based on pascal & ada.
 Strongly typed.
VERILOG
 Case sensitive.
 Easy to learn.
 Based on c.
 Not strongly typed.

12. RTL Verification
RTL verification tools
 RTL simulation and verification is one of the important step. This ensures that
the design is logically correct and without major timing errors. It is
advantageous to perform this step, especially in the early stages of the design
 xilinx ise
 Modelism
 Verilog - XL
 Finism
 Test Builder

13. RTL verification wave form

14. Synthesis
Synthesis tools/kit
 This is where the design now start to get physical. Logic synthesis is a process by
which the desired circuit behavior i.e. Register Transistor Level is turned into a
design in terms of logic gates which drives the circuit or architecture.
 FPGA ( Altera, Digiland, Xilinx )
 CPLD ( Altera, Digiland )

15. FPGA KIT
Field programmable gate array (FPGA)
• It is a IC which can be be programmable by user to capture the logic.
• Capable to capturing 100,000 designed gates.

16. Foundry
The design is sent for Fabrication for mass production to foundry .

17. IC Chip

18. Front End
 The frontend flow is responsible to determine a solution for a given problem or
opportunity and transform it into a RTL circuit description.
Problem
Solution Specification
Behavioural Representation
RTL Coding (VHDL/Verilog)
Functional Verification
Back EndVerification?
YesNo

19. Back End
 The backend process is responsible for the physical implementation of a circuit. It
transforms the RTL circuit description into a physical design, composed by gates
and its interconnections. The main phases of the backend process are Synthesis
and Place & Route.
B
B
Synthesis
Synthesis Verification
Post-Layout Verification
Parasitic Extraction
Place & Route
Verification?
Yes
No
A
A
Static Timing Analysis
Timing?
Verification?
The End
Yes
Yes
No
No

20. Synthesis
 Synthesis is responsible for converting the RTL description into a structural gate
level based netlist. This netlist instantiates every element (standard cells and macros)
that compose the circuit and its connections.
 Synthesis can be described as follows:
Synthesis = Translation + Optimization + Mapping
 Synopsys Design Compiler is the tool used to perform a logical synthesis. Its inputs
are:
 The RTL description – Verilog or VHDL;
 The GTECH library – General technology library. Not tied to any specific
technology (gates, flip flops);
 Design Ware Library –Synthetic library (adders, multipliers, comparators, etc).
 The standard cell library – the specific target library;
 The defined constraints – synthesis goals regarding timing, area, capacitance,
max transition, fanout. Delivered by the Frontend team.
 Design Environment: The operating conditions (Libraries corners), wire load
models.

21. Synthesis Verification
 The first step is to verify a set of reports, which have information about timing,
area, fanout and shows the violations to the defined constraints.
 These reports must be interpreted to check if there are violations (setup time, hold
times, area, max transition, etc.).
 In case of violations DC can try to fix them by running optimization algorithms. If
DC cannot fix the violations, one must go back to RTL coding. With these reports it
is possible to check if the design is synthesizable and, therefore, if it is possible to
proceed.
 The final verification before proceeding to Place&Route is to run Formality, which is
a logical verification tool. It takes the final netlist generated by DC and checks the
logical equivalence with the RTL description.

22. Place & Route
 Place & Route is the backend stage that converts the gate level netlist produced
during synthesis into a physical design. Although the name denotes for two phases,
the Place & Route stage can be divided in three steps: Placement, Clock Tree
Synthesis (CTS) and Routing.
 Clock tree synthesis is the creation of a balanced buffer tree in all high fanout clock
nets to avoid violations regarding clock skew, max transition time, capacitance and
setup and hold times.
 Routing is done in three phases: Global Routing (design routing nets), Track
Assignment (assign nets to specific metal layers), and Search & Repair (fix
violations)

23. Placement
Empty miliway library
Load netlist
Connect cells pins
Load TLU+ files
Load floorplan
Laod Design Cons.
Check Spl Design Cons.
Antenna Issues
ICC Int. Sets
Coarse Plcmnt
Legalize
Scan Chain
Optimize Spare Cells
Power & GND
Routing Guides
CTS
Define Clock
Load Clk Tree Syn. Sets
Remove Auto Buffers
Compile Clk Tree
Errors
Set Not to Touch Attribs.
IR Drop Analysis
Static Timing Analysis
Routing
Congestion Map
Route Clk Nets
Route Signal Nets
Errors
FILL & DCAP cells in gaps
Redundancy
Run DRC & LVS
Save Database
Sign Off

24. Parasitic Extraction
 Parasitic extraction has the objective to create an accurate RC model of the circuit
so that future simulations and timing, power and IR Drop analyses can emulate the
real circuit response.
 Only with this information, all the analyses and simulations can report results close
to the real functioning of the circuit. This way this stage needs to precede all
signoff analyses.

25. Static Timing Analysis
 STA is a method to obtain accurate timing information without the need to
simulate the circuit.
 It allows detecting setup and hold times violations, as well as skew and slow paths
that limit the operation frequency.
 Synopsys Prime Time allows running STA over a physical design, for each corner.
Taking as inputs the post-layout netlist and parasitic and standard cells information
it outputs a series of reports, which give the possibility to detect timing violations.

26. Post Layout Verification
 The huge number of transistors in a circuit can make the voltage level drop below a
defined margin that ensures that the circuit works properly.
 IR Drop analysis allows checking the power grid to ensure that it is strong enough
to hold that minimum voltage level.
 Synopsys Prime Rail is the tool that outputs IR-drop and EM analyses reports.
 The final step is to run Synopsys Hercules which is a DRC/LVS verification tool.
 DRC (Design Rules Checking) checks if the foundry geometric and connectivity
rules are met.
 Examples of DRC´s include: Metal to metal spacing; well to well spacing; minimum
metal width; Antenna Effect; Metal fill density.
 LVS (Layout Versus Schematic) checks if the physical circuit corresponds to the
original circuit schematic.

27. Application of VLSI