VLSI Design 1

Syllabus
SECTION-A
Unit I : Introduction to VLSI: Applications of VLSI, Advantages, Integrated
Circuit Manufacturing - Technology and Economics; CMOS
Technology - Power consumption, Design and Testability, Reliability ;
Integrated Circuit Design Techniques - Hierarchical Design, Design
Abstraction and CAD; IP based design - types of IP, IP across design
Hierarchy, IP Life cycle.

Unit II : Basic HDL Constructs: VLSI Design flow, Overview of different

modeling styles in VHDL, Data types, operators and data objects in
VHDL, Dataflow Modeling, Behavioral Modeling, using VHDL for
combinational Circuits and sequential Circuits.+`

Unit III : Hardware Description Language: Structural Modeling, Subprograms,

Packages and Libraries, Generics, Configurations, attributes. Simple
Test Bench, Simulation and Synthesis issues, case study of ALU/
Sequence Detector, Comparison of various Hardware Description
Languages. VLSI Design 2
 SECTION-B

Unit IV : Programmable Logic Devices: Introduction to CPLDs: Function block

architecture, input/output block, switch matrix, Study of architecture of
CPLDs of Altera /Xilinx. Introduction to FPGAs: Configurable logic
block, input/output block and interconnect, Study of architecture of
FPGAs of Xilinx /Altera.

Unit V : CMOS Circuits: Different logic families, MOS Transistor, CMOS as an

inverter, propagation delay, power consumption/ dissipation issues, simple
circuits using CMOS.

Unit VI : CMOS Processing & Digital Circuit Verification: CMOS Fabrication:

Different steps of fabrication, CMOS p-well, n-Well and twin tub
processes, CMOS Layout and Design rules.

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What is a VLSI Circuit?

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 What is VLSI?
Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating
an integrated circuit (IC) by combining thousands
of transistors into a single chip.
 VLSI began in the 1970s when
complex semiconductor and communication technologies were
being developed.
The microprocessor is a VLSI device.
Before the introduction of VLSI technology most ICs had a
limited set of functions they could perform.
An electronic circuit might consist of a CPU, ROM, RAM and
other glue logic. VLSI lets IC designers add all of these into one
chip.
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 OR
Very large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of
integrating or embedding hundreds of thousands of
transistors on a single silicon semiconductor microchip.
VLSI technology was conceived in the late 1970s when
advanced level computer processor microchips were
under development.
VLSI is a successor to large-scale integration (LSI),
medium-scale integration (MSI) and small-scale
integration (SSI) technologies.

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VLSI Technology
VLSI is one of the most widely used technologies for
microchip processors, integrated circuits (IC) and
component designing.
It was initially designed to support hundreds of
thousands of transistor gates on a microchip which, as of
2012, exceeded several billion. All of these transistors are
remarkably integrated and embedded within a microchip
that has shrunk over time but still has the capacity to
hold enormous amounts of transistors.
The first 1 mega byte RAM was built on top of VLSI
design principles and included more than one million
transistors on its microchip dye.

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Brief History

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 Integrated circuit classification
Number Number
Name Signification Year of of Logic Example
Transistor Gates
s

SSI small-scale 1964 1 to 10 1 to 12 Logic Gates

integration

MSI medium-scale 1968 10 to 500 13 to 99 Registers

integration
.

LSI large-scale 1971 500 to 100 to uP(Micropr

integration 20,000 9,999 ocessor)

VLSI very large-scale 1980 20,000 to 10,000 to RAM,

integration 1,000,000 99,999 Processor

ultra-large- 1,000,000 100,000 Intel

ULSI scale 1984 and more and more Processors
integration (i3, i5 etc)
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 Why VLSI?
Integration improves the design
Lower parasitic = higher speed
Lower power consumption
Physically smaller
Integration reduces manufacturing cost-(almost)
no manual assembly

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Why should you learn about VLSI systems?
• They are ubiquitous in our daily lives
(computers/iPods/TVs/Cars/…/etc).

• It can help you understand the devices you use.

• The market for VLSI systems (and semiconductors)

is worth $500 billion dollars.

• It can help you get a decent job after graduation (or

you can even start your own company).

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 Why Make ICs

• Integration improves
– size
– speed
– power
• Integration reduce manufacturing costs
– (almost) no manual assembly

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 VLSI advantages:
VLSI has many advantages-

1. Reduces the Size of Circuits.

2. Reduces the effective cost of the devices.
3. Increases the Operating speed of circuits
4. Requires less power than Discrete components.
5. Higher Reliability
6. Occupies a relatively smaller area.

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 VLSI Applications
VLSI is an implementation technology for electronic circuitry -
analogue or digital
It is concerned with forming a pattern of interconnected switches and
gates on the surface of a crystal of semiconductor
• Microprocessors
• personal computers
• microcontrollers
• Memory - DRAM / SRAM
• Special Purpose Processors - ASICS (CD players, DSP
applications)
• Optical Switches
Has made highly sophisticated control systems mass-producable and
therefore cheap
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 VLSI Applications

In today's world VLSI chips are widely used in various

branches of Engineering like:
 Voice and Data Communication networks
 Digital Signal Processing
 Computers
 Commercial Electronics
 Automobiles
 Medicine and many more.

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VLSI Chips

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Moore's law is the observation that, over the history of
computing hardware, the number of transistors
on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two
years (18 months).

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 Feature sizes

Human Hair
~75 m

0.016 m
.
16 nm
feature
.

~90,000 (16-nm node) transistors could fit on cross-section

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2005 2015

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From Howe, Sodini: Microelectronics:An Integrated
Approach, Prentice Hall

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The First Computer

The Babbage
Difference Engine
(1832)
25,000 parts
cost: £17,470

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ENIAC - The first electronic computer (1946)

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 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
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IC Product Market Shares

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 Terminology
• Manufacturing node: technology at a
particular channel length.
• Deep submicron technology: 250-100 nm.
• Nanometer technology: 100 nm and below.

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 Example: Intel Processor Sizes
Silicon Process 1.5 1.0 0.8 0.6 0.35 0.25
Technology
Intel386TM DX
Processor

Intel486TM DX
Processor

Pentium® Processor

Pentium® Pro &

Pentium® II Processors
Source: http://www.intel.com/
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 Heterogeneity on Chip

• Greater diversity of on-chip

elements Heterogeneity
– Processors
– Software
– Memory
– Analog

More transistors doing different things!

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[©Keutzer]
 The Inverted Pyramid
Electronic Systems > $1 Trillion

Semiconductor > $220 B

CAD $3 B

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[©Keutzer]
 Where is the money?
• Gaps to be filled:
– System-semiconductor gap
– Semiconductor-CAD gap

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 The cost of fabrication
• Current cost: $4 billion.
• Typical fab line occupies about 1 city block,
employs a few hundred people.
• Most profitable period is first 18 months-2
years.

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 Cost factors in ICs
• For large-volume ICs:
– packaging is largest cost;
– testing is second-largest cost.
• For low-volume ICs, design costs may swamp
all manufacturing costs.

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 Cost of design
• Design cost can be significant: $20 million for
a large ASIC, $500 million for a large CPU.
• Cost elements:
– Architects, logic designers, etc.
– CAD tools.
– Computers the CAD tools run on.

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 Top 10 VLSI Companies in India
1 | Texas Instruments
Corporate office – Dallas, United State | Establishment –1951 |
Business – Semiconductor | Website – www.ti.com |
Texas Instruments is world’s third largest semiconductor company and a
chip producer for mobile phones. The company is among the top 10
semiconductor companies in India and its product offering includes
analog electronics, calculators, integrated circuits and radio frequency
identification. It was founded in year 1951 and headquartered in Dallas,
United states.
2 | Analog Device Inc.
Corporate office – Norwood, USA | Establishment – 1965 |
Business – Semiconductor | Website – www.analog.com |
Analog Device Inc is a semiconductor design and manufacturing company
which is a market leader in data conversion and signal technology. Analog
device is founded in year 1965 and its design center is located in
Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, Scotland, Taiwan, Germany, UK, China,
Scotland and India.

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3 | Cypress Semiconductor Corporation
Corporate office – San Jose, USA | Establishment – 1982 |
Business – Semiconductor | Website – www.cypress.com |
Cypress semiconductor is a semiconductor manufacturing and
design company established in year 1982. The US based company
has total 14 design centers and more than 40 sales offices located
all across the globe. Its product offering includes capacitance
sensing systems, Psoc, optical sensor and wireless solution.

4 | Broadcom Corporation
Corporate office – Irvine, USA | Establishment – 1991 |
Business – Semiconductor | Website – www.broadcom.com |
Broad corporation is rated among the top 10 semiconductor
manufacturers in India; an American company which was
established in 1991 by professor and student duo Henry Samueli
and Henry T Nicholas. Its product portfolio includes Integrated
circuits, cable converter boxes, wireless networks, cable modems,
professors, Bluetooth, VIOP, GPS, server farms, digital subscriber
line
.

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5 | Cisco Systems
Corporate office – San Jose, USA | Establishment – 1984 |
Business – Network Equipments | Website – www.cisco.com |
Cisco Systems is a MNC and one of the leading design and
manufacturer of networking equipment. Its major product offering
includes Networking device, Optical networking, storage area
networks, wireless, VOIP, IOS and NX OS software etc. It is
headquartered in San Jose, USA and has employed more than 75000
people all across the globe.
6 | Bit Mapper Integration Technologies Private Limited
Corporate office – Pune, Maharashtra | Establishment – 1985 |
Business – Electronic Design | Website – www.bitmapper.com |
Bit Mapper is a technology company offering electronic system
design using PCB and FPGA design. The company is offering design
solution to various sector such as defense, aerospace,
telecommunication and software. It is a leading VLSI company in
India and its expertise includes PCB design, Flexible circuits, Thermal
analysis, ADC based board and many more.
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7 | Horizon Semiconductors
Corporate office – Bangalore, Karnataka | Establishment – 1815|
Business – Semiconductor | Website – www.horizonsemi.com |
Horizon Semiconductors is an integrated silicon solution provider and
its product offering includes single chip cable, Satellite set-top box,
dual channel HD channel, 2d & 3d graphics, Single chip Blu-ray, trans
coder and encoder ICs. It is one among the top semiconductor
companies in India.

8 | Einfochips limited
Corporate office – Ahmadabad, Gujarat | Establishment – 1994 |
Business – Semiconductor | Website – www.einfochips.com |
Among the top 10 VLSI companies in India, Einfochips is one of the
most trusted brands in product engineering and semiconductor
service; and serves to Aerospace & defense, energy, healthcare, retail
and software sector. It is headquartered in Ahmadabad, Gujarat.

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9 | Trident Tech Labs
Corporate office – New Delhi, India | Establishment – 2000 |
Business – Electronic Design | Website – www.tridenttechlabs.com |
Established in year 2000, Trident Techlabs is a knowledge based
technology organization which offers electronic design solution. The
company is a leading computer aided engineering provider and reputed
name in Very Large Scale Integration companies in India.

10 | HCL technologies
Corporate office – Noida, Uttar Pradesh | Establishment – 1991 |
Business – IT and Software | Website – www.hcltech.com|
HCL technologies is a software, KPO and IT service provider
headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The company has office in 26
countries worldwide to provide support and consultancy to industry
verticals including defense & aviation industry, energy, power, software,
manufacturing, semiconductor, retail etc. It has also well known name in
VLSI companies in India and its engineering & Research division provides
support to semiconductor industry.

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Biggest semiconductor companies

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 Stronger Market Pressures

• Decreasing design window

• Less tolerance for design Time-to-market
revisions

Exponentially more complex, greater design risk,

greater variety, and a smaller design window!

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[©Keutzer]
 What does it take to design VLSI systems?
1. idea (need)

2. write specifications

3. design
system

satisfactory
4. analyze/
model
system

if
5. Fabrication
6. test / work as
modeled?

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Front End Design :
The front end design consists of those steps which involves manufacturing only
on software's and functionality verification. It consists of following steps :

Design Specification : According to the requirements, they describe abstractly

the architecture, functionality and interface of the digital IC circuit to be
designed. The object is to describe the purpose of the design including all
aspects, such as the functions to be realized, timing constraints, and power
dissipation requirements etc.

Behavioral Description : Behavioral description is then created to analyze the

design in terms of functionality, performance, compliance to given standards,
and other specifications.

RTL Description : RTL description is done using HDLs and simulated to test
functionality. We need the help of EDA tools from here onwards. The various sub
steps include verification of functionality and testing on a software. At the end,
the design is synthesized using the EDA tools and various timing constraints are
checked.
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Back End Design :
Gate – level Netlist : RTL description is then converted to a gate-level netlist
using logic synthesis tools. It is a description of the circuit in terms of gates and
connections between them, such that they meet the timing, power and area
specifications. The design is partitioned into convenient compartments or
functional blocks, placed on a silicon floor and various interconnects are routed
on the chip.

Physical Layout : Finally a physical layout is made, which will be verified and
then sent to fabrication.

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1. Applications / Ideas

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 2. Specifications
•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.

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 3/4. Design and Analysis
VHDL / Verilog

synthesis

mask layout patterns find wire routes device layout

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 5. Fabrication

tape out

mask layout patterns mask writer masks

test and printing

packaging dice

die wafer
chip
From Howe, Sodini: Microelectronics:An
Integrated Approach, Prentice Hall
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6. Evaluate design and compare to model

• Check signal integrity

• Power consumption
• Input/output
behavior

• Does the chip function

as it is supposed to
be?

• Does it work at desired

clock frequency?

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Intel core 7 processor

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Component hierarchy

top

i1 xxx i2

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 Dealing with complexity
• Divide-and-conquer: limit the number of
components you deal with at any one time.
• Group several components into larger
components:
– transistors form gates;
– gates form functional units;
– functional units form processing elements;
– etc.

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Mixed schematic

inverter

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Transistor schematic

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Stick diagram

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Layout and its abstractions

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 Levels of abstraction
• Specification: function, cost, etc. (Ex: Counter)
• Architecture: large blocks.
• Logic: gates + registers.
• Circuits: transistor sizes for speed, power.
• Layout: determines parasitics.

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 Design abstractions

English specification

Executable Throughput,
program behavior design time

register- Function units,

function Sequential clock cycles cost
transfer
machines
Literals,
Logic gates logic logic depth

transistors circuit nanoseconds

rectangles layout microns

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Design Abstraction Levels
SYSTEM

MODULE
+

GATE

CIRCUIT

DEVICE
G
S D
n+ n+

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 Help from Computer Aided Design
tools
• Tools • Experts
– Editors – Logic design
– Simulators – Electronic/circuit design
– Libraries – Device physics
– Module Synthesis – Artwork
– Place/Route – Applications - system
– Chip Assemblers design
– Silicon Compilers – Architectures

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 New Design Methodologies
• Methodologies which are based on:
– System Level Abstractions v.s. Device
Characteristic Abstractions
• Logic structures and circuitry change slowly over
time
– trade-offs do change, but the choices do not
– Scalable Designs
• Layout techniques also change slowly.
– But the minimum feature size steadily decreases with
time (also Voltage, Die Size, etc.)

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 VLSI Design Styles

• Full Custom
• Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)
• Programmable Logic (PLD, FPGA)
• System-on-a-Chip

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 Full Custom Design

• Each circuit element carefully “handcrafted”

• Huge design effort
• High Design & NRE(Non-recurring engineering)
Costs (One time cost for research) / Low Unit Cost
• High Performance
• Typically used for high-volume applications

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 Intellectual property
• Intellectual property (IP): pre-designed
components.
– May come from outside vendors, internal sources.
• IP saves time, design cost.
• IP blocks must be designed to be reused.

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 IP-based design
Almost every chip uses some form of IP:
– Standard cell libraries.
– Memories.
– IP blocks.
Designers must know how to:
– Create IP.
– Use IP.

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 Types of IP
• Hard IP:
– Pre-designed layout.
– Allows more detailed characterization.
• Soft IP:
– No layout---logic synthesis, etc.
– IP layout is created by the IP user.

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 Hard IP
• Must conform to many standards:
– Layout pin placement.
– Layer usage.
– Transistor sizing.
• Hard IP blocks are usually qualified on a
particular process.
– Component is fabricated and tested to show that
the IP works on that fab line.

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 Soft IP
• Conformance of layout to local standards is
easier since it is created by the user.
• Timing can only be estimated until the layout
is done.
• Must conform to interface standards.
– A wrapper adapts a block to a new interface.

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 IP across the design hierarchy
• Standard cells.
– Pitch matched in rows, compatible drive.
• Register-transfer modules.
• Memories.
• CPUs.
• Busses.
• I/O devices.

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 The I/O lifecycle
spec

HDL design

Database Charcterization documentation

extraction & validation

qualification

IP modules IP
IP
database docs

chip design

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 Specifying IP
• Hard or soft?
• Functionality.
• Performance, including process corners.
• Power consumption.
• Special process features required.

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 Using IP
• May come from vendor, open source, or
internal group.
• Must identify candidate IP, evaluate for
suitability.
• May have to pay for IP.
• May want to qualify IP before use, particularly
if it pushes analog characteristics.

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1 Explain design and testability for integrated
circuit.
2 Explain IP life cycle.
3 Explain Advantages & Applications of VLSI.
4 Draw and explain design abstraction ladder
for digital system.

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Sr. No. Title Author Publication

T-1 Principles of CMOS VLSI Neil H.Weste and Pearson

design Kamran Eshraghian
T-2 VHDL Primer J Bhasker Addison Wesley

T-3 VHDL Douglas Perry Tata McGraw

T-4 Modern VLSI Design Wayne Wolfe 4th Edition, PHI

Sr. No. Title Author Publication

R-1 VLSI Technology Wayne Wolf Prentice Hall

R-2 VLSI Test Principles and Laung Terng Wang Elsevier
Architectures
R-3 Data sheet of XC95XX and Xilinix
sparatan 3
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