Digital VLSI Design

News and Notes

The course is mostly over now. I really liked your efforts and motivation for the course, and I would like to thank your for that. I will keep this website for archival purposes.

Instructions for the Project

The Project description has been extended (April 23) with submission info.
The Project description has been extended (April 11) with notes about clock frequency (800 Mhz), test bench for download, how to calculate power, and how to do parameter sweeping for design optimization.
Instructions for how to run Cadence with the UMC90 technology are provided in UMC90 (sorry for having accidentally removed this link).

Please read carefully, and communicate all questions to me or the TA's.

Slides

00 about 2up.pdf	Introduction to the course
01 devices 2up.pdf	Introduction to CMOS transistor (updated after 2nd lecture)
02 process 2up.pdf	VLSI manufacturing and layout (updated after 3rd lecture)
03 inverter static 2up.pdf	Static behavior of inverter
04 interconnect 2up.pdf	VLSI interconnections
05 inverter dynamic 2up.pdf	Dynamic behavior of inverter
06 inverter sizing 2up.pdf	Inverter sizing for performance
07 inverter power 2up.pdf	Inverter power modeling and technology scaling
	(Modified after class to include extra slide for short-circuit current.)
08 combinational 2up.pdf	Combinational Gates
	(Slightly modified logical effort explanation.)
09 sequential 2up.pdf	Sequential Elements

Slides for lab/exercise introduction:
i1 spectre intro 2up.pdf	Spectre/Lab intro for lecture week 2.
lfsr 2up.pdf	Project description with reference design.

Unix and Cadence Practice

You can use the computers in the MSc lab on the 16th floor of the EWI building (opposite of the elevators). You will have to work in pairs, and each team will only get one login name. You will have to share your account with your team-mate. On Monday, in class, I will explain more details and how/where you can get a login name.

If you have your login, you should first make yourself familiar with the Linux operating system, insofar you are not yet familiar enough. See LinuxStart. The Cadence system (and many other IC design tools, but in fact many other scientific and engineering tools), require a certain level of Linux/Unix skills.

Spectre Getting Started

Do this in lecture week 2!

First, you should work through Chapter 2 of the Spectre User Manual (for simulation). This manual can be found via the Cadence Local Guide. Tips for working through this manual can be found in SpectreIntro. Here you will also find an example of solving Exercise 3.11 from the book exercises (available on the Rabaey site). It also points to a suitable model file.

Cell Design Getting Started

After being sufficiently familiar with circuit simulation, you should work through Chapter 1 of the Cell Design Tutorial. See CadenceLocalGuide.

Documentation

Linux documentation, including how to start for beginners, is collected in LinuxStart.
A Cadence Local Guide provides the details for the local installation of Cadence that we will be using for the Et4293 course. Please know this document before beginning with Cadence. It also contains instructions of where and how to find and open the Cadence documentation.
Instructions for how to run Cadence with the UMC90 technology are provided in UMC90.
Information on running Cadence is widely available on the Internet. Cdsdoc provides some links.
Local information on IC Design, Tools, Technologies, etc. in general, not tailored to the Et4293 course in general, can be found here