In this article, we’ll go over the ASIC design modeling process, gate-level physical design, and its specifications.
Table Of Contents
What Is ASIC Design?
ASIC design is a methodology of cost and size reduction of an electronic circuit, product or system through miniaturization and integration of individual components and their functionality into a single element – an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC).
An electronic product commonly consists of many integrated circuits (ICs) which are interconnected together to perform a particular function. For example, a 1980’s smoke detector was built entirely of general-purpose ICs, such as amplifiers, comparators, regulators and discrete components such as resistors and capacitors.
It was expensive (component cost and assembly cost) and bulky (all those components required space). As competition intensified, the requirement for lower cost and smaller size drove the need for consolidation and integration of all those individual components into a single ASIC, reducing not only overall cost and size of the smoke detector but also improving its reliability (fewer parts, fewer things to go wrong).
Recently, VLSI CMOS has played a crucial role in placing millions of transistors on a single chip, providing digital system designers with an ability to implement a vast number of gates with complex functionality on a single IC.
According to Moore’s Law, the number of gates or transistors doubles after every 18 months and is growing to extremely high densities per IC. Rapidly growing technology in logic, parallelization, CAD tools, and memory promises continued advancement in the next 15 years. With the help of CAD tools, high-level descriptions can be translated into specific functions such as registers, microcontrollers, ALU, control units and more.
Modern ASICs combine multiple complex blocks in a single package, including analog elements such as an amplifier, ADC, PLL and digital elements such as a microcontroller, OTP, ROM, EEPROM, RAM, and other building blocks. These types of ICs are known as system on chip (SoC). The analog section of the ASIC is designed using primarily transistor-level design techniques and manual layout processes. The digital section of the chip is designed primarily using hardware description languages such as VHDL/Verilog followed by automated Place and Route (PnR) layout process.
There are three types of ASIC chip designs:
- Full Custom Design
- Semi-Custom Design
- Programmable ASIC
Some examples of ASIC chips include chips in the consumer, medical, automotive, and industrial sectors. ICs that are not ASICs are general-purpose ICs such as voltage regulators, stand-alone memories (EEPROM, RAM)
| Year | 1995 | 1998 | 2001 | 2004 | 2007 | 2010 |
| Feature size (μm) | 0.35 | 0.25 | 0.18 | 0.13 | 0.10 | 0.07 |
| 5M | 14M | 26M | 50M | 210M | 430M | |
| DRAM bits/chip | 64M | 256M | 1G | 4G | 16G | 64G |
| Number of I/O | 900 | 1350 | 2000 | 2600 | 3600 | 4800 |
| Chip-to-board speed | 150 | 200 | 250 | 300 | 375 | 475 |
| Maximum number of wiring levels (logic) | 4-5 | 5 | 5-6 | 6 | 6-7 | 7-8 |
| On-chip speed (MHz) | 300 | 450 | 600 | 800 | 1000 | 1100 |
The evolution of VLSI as told by the Semiconductor Industries Association
What Is A Specification?
An ASIC specification is a document that lists how a device needs to function and perform in various operational situations such as tithe specification phase is an extremely significant part of the design and development process. As technology becomes more advanced and entrenched in every aspect of life, customers are expecting new features and design improvements from their devices, including high-speed processing and low power consumption. A top-down design approach is employed to navigate and manage complexities of the ASIC design process, and as a first step, dictates the development of a proper detailed specification. A thoroughly crafted working specification helps guide the design process, with the project less prone to errors disruptive to project schedule and cost.
It is very important that an expert in ASIC system design assists customers in developing system architecture and specifications. This extensive process takes around 2 to 6 weeks depending upon the complexity of the application requirements. The specification process is followed by:
- Reviewing the block diagram, system schematics, and specifications
- Developing an understanding related to design problems, operating environment, and challenges
- Making a decision related to the final product, not only ASICs
- Determining if any certification is required in the product such as IEC, TS compliance
- Designing or compiling the ASIC block diagram with full functional components, specifications, and pinout
- Deciding board-level architectural trade-offs that lead to the most cost-effective silicon integration
What Is Logic Design?
Logic design for an ASIC begins with the design team analyzing the functional specification in order to define and create a logic design architecture. The architecture definition includes a block diagram that provides details about functional relationships between digital logic such as, finite state machines, combinational logic, sequential logic, processors, memories, data path design, communication buses, and the connections between them.
Once the architecture definition is in place, the next step is to describe detailed functionality of the blocks and connection between the respective functional blocks. Description of logic design functionality is accomplished using either a graphical depiction (schematic), or more commonly, and particularly with large systems, a purpose-specific hardware definition language (HDL code) such as Verilog and VHDL.
HDL code can be written at different levels of abstraction from transistor level logic depending on the chosen design flow and development needs. Very large systems and or complicated systems will start at the behavioral level. Behavioral is the highest level of abstraction from a gate to gate-level description and is often coded in languages such as System Verilog, Verilog, VHDL, and C. Behavioral level coding generally cannot be directly synthesized to gate-level logic but is useful for modeling and verification.
Register-Transfer Level (RTL) coding is abstracted from a gate-level description for increased coding efficiency but is synthesizable with EDA (Electronic Design Automation) tools to produce gate level and ultimately transistor-level implementations. RTL code describes the desired hardware by implying logic, by defining flip-flops, latches, and how data is transferred between them. Synthesis of RTL code utilizes the power of advanced EDA tool capabilities to, create, alter, and optimize the logic used for implementation, but not functional behavior.
Gate level coding is the least abstracted from transistor level logic. Gate level coding describes the design using the base logic gates, NAND, NOR, AND, OR, MUX, FLIP-FLOP. It does not need to be synthesized and has the lowest level of abstraction. Gate level coding is useful for smaller less complicated designs or designs that require very specific implementation for performance but does not offer the design efficiency that comes with higher levels of abstraction in concert with sophisticated EDA (Electronic Design Automation) tools.
The design team will also provide an estimate of the on-die block area required for implementation, and other details affecting the cost and power usage of the digital logic system.
Verification
The logical design is verified for matching of original design intent and implementation at several stages throughout the design process to ensure an accurate successful ASIC outcome. The verification process includes applying test cases to the detailed design description and confirming that the expected behavior is achieved. Verification is also carried out at additional stages of the design, using sophisticated EDA tools to compare gate-level netlists to the design description and actual layout implementation to the synthesized netlist. If any verification test fails along the way, the design is sent back for correction to the design department responsible for that particular part of the implementation. Continual design and implementation verification throughout the development process catch errors and design deficiencies before they become costly time-consuming mistakes.
Design Synthesis
Design synthesis is the process of translating the logical design into a gate-level netlist that can then be implemented as a physical silicon structure. The logical design and its detailed description are technology-independent until the synthesis process. The synthesis process uses advanced EDA tools that are aware of the capabilities and limitations of the target technology (FAB process) that the high-level abstracted design is being ported to. Design synthesis output is technology-dependent, tailored to the target ASIC process.
Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
What Is Physical Design?
Physical design (also known as back-end design) is the process of converting the gate-level netlist produced at synthesis into functional ASIC hardware. Physical design steps include floor planning, power planning, partitioning, placement, routing, clock tree synthesis, final verification, and export as a GDSII file to the fabrication facility for construction. A number of high-level EDA tools from various vendors such as Cadence, Synopsis, Magma, Mentor Graphics are available to facilitate back-end design. They each have their strengths and weaknesses and are sometimes used in concert to achieve an efficient implementation path with optimal results.
Floorplan
Floorplanning is the process of placing functional blocks in the chip area so as to allocate routing areas between them, plan for critical power and ground connections, and determine Input / Output (IO) pad locations. A good floorplan will balance design constraints to minimize total die area, optimize signal routing channels for ease of layout and signal performance, and relative placement of functional blocks to minimize interference and preserve signal integrity. Careful floorplanning is key to how well the rest of the physical design process flows.
Partitioning
Partitioning (logical partitioning) is the process of dividing the chip into small blocks. The objective of partitioning is to make the functional block easier for placement and routing. This step can be done in the logical design phase when the design team divides the entire design into sub-blocks for development, or at the physical design (back-end) phase to aid in place and route activities focused on routing channels, signal integrity, and dies utilization.
Power Planning
Power planning takes into account the energy usage of each block, individual voltage supplies, ground paths, and interaction between them. Power Planning is one of the most important stages in Physical design. It is actually an integral part of the floorplanning process, but due to its significance in ASIC performance and function, it is often addressed as a separate stage of consideration.
During power planning, location for ground and power rings, cross die trunks, and isolated routes for sensitive circuits are allocated. Constraints for internal core ASIC circuitry and I/O cell power management are treated separately because they often have different demands. Special power pads are used for positive supply, ground, and negative supply. Multiple power and ground pads are often used to reduce the series resistivity and inductive impedance that affects, voltage drop, signal integrity, and high-speed performance.
Placement
Placement is the process of dividing the chip into smaller blocks by placing the correct position to standard cells with none overlapping on the chip. Placement is performed in four optimization phases: pre-placement, in-placement, and post-placement before and after clock tree synthesis.
Clock Tree Synthesis
Clock tree synthesis is the process of ensuring that clock signals are distributed evenly to all sequential elements in a design with the primary objective of preventing clock timing-related errors. Clocking of gates in high-speed designs are subject errors as a result of the clock edge not arriving at the exact time it is expected relative to when it arrived at other parts of the circuit. This timing error is called clock skew and is dependant on a number of variables both in the original design and in physical implementation.
Clock tree synthesis performed during the physical design process considers the effects of place and route, channel impedance, parasitic loads, etc. Then through the insertion of buffers or inverters along the clock paths to minimize or balance skew of important clock signal chains, build a clock tree that achieves proper timing across the entire design.
Routing
Routing is the process of connecting macros, standard cells, I/O ports, power, and the clock physically with metal traces. Routing is divided into two steps: global and detailed routing. In global routing, trace or wire length, and route channel congestion are estimated. In detailed routing, the actual connections within each block are made.
DFM
Design For Manufacture is paramount to achieve production yield and part reliability. As ASIC designs become larger and more complex and process technologies become more intricate, it is important that key factors such as process limitations, parameter repeatability, environmental and signal stresses are considered and factored to increase the probability of successful part to part results. Factoring of process and use constraints to increase yield, decrease test time, and other processing concerns are what is termed design-for-manufacture (DFM). DFM can often be the difference between a successful ASIC project that meets cost, reliability, and production goals versus one that falls short.