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1. Introduction to VLSI
Design
Amit Kumar Mishra
ECE Department
IIT Guwahati

2. Tale of two queries!
 Y R U here?
 Y M I here?

3. Landmarks
 Moore’s axiom
 Some more funda
 Free CAD tool
 Parting notes

4. 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

5. Moore’s Law
1
10
100
1K
10K
100K
1M
10M
Transistors
10x/6 years
8086
68000
68020
80386
80486
68040
8080
4004
Pentium Pro
Pentium
PPC601
PPC603
MIPS R4000
Microprocessors
[©Keutzer]

6. 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

7. IC Product Market Shares
Source: Electronic Business

8. Example: Intel Processor Sizes
Source: http://www.intel.com/
Intel386TM DX
Processor
Intel486TM DX
Processor
Pentium® Processor
Pentium® Pro &
Pentium® II Processors
1.5m 1.0m 0.8m 0.6m 0.35m 0.25m
Silicon Process
Technology

9. Heterogeneity on Chip
 Greater diversity of on-
chip elements
Processors
Software
Memory
Analog
[©Keutzer]
More transistors doing different things!
Heterogeneity

10. 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!

11. VLSI Design Styles
 Full Custom
 Application-Specific Integrated Circuit
(ASIC)
 Programmable Logic (PLD, FPGA)
 System-on-a-Chip

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. The Inverted Pyramid
[©Keutzer]
Electronic Systems > $1 Trillion
Semiconductor > $220 B
CAD $3 B

17. Where is the money?
 Gaps to be filled:
System-semiconductor gap
Semiconductor-CAD gap

18. 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!

19. 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!

20. Thank You
Best of Luck for End-Sems and Internships