Digital Integrated Circuits

The design and manufacture of digital integrated circuits are among the greatest challenges facing the global engineering industry. To illustrate the situation, let's take the example of the integrated circuits currently manufactured for the telephone industry. For the most advanced of them, it is possible to count no less than ten billion transistors. Managing such a large amount of information requires the use of complex design methods and tools.

The current paradigm of design methods is based on the use of pre-characterized logic gate libraries. These libraries consider the external environment such as the supply voltage (V) and the temperature (T) as well as the manufacturing context of the circuits through the variability of the manufacturing process (P). It is only from the information contained in these that it will be possible to i) establish the performance in terms of frequency and power consumption of the circuits being designed and ii) guarantee a high manufacturing yield. All of these constraints, known as "PVT", are taken into account through a design method known as the CORNERS method.

In the context of the design and manufacture of digital integrated circuits, it is essential to first understand the operation of the basic elements of digital integrated circuits: gates and flip-flops. Then, in order to understand the complexity of digital architectures and design issues, the operating principle of the synchronous logic system will be dissected. Finally, once the students have mastered the issues, the different steps of the design flow, from the specifications to the generation of manufacturing files and the creation of libraries, can be presented and implemented by the students.

Know how to read English

Know the physics of the component

Mastering Boolean algebra

Recommended prerequisites*:

Have the basics of the VHDL language

Know the Linux environment

• Operation

Synthesis of a combinatorial logic gate and projection on a standard cell

Determination of the performance and consumption of a logic gate

Functioning and operating limits of the scales

Operation and operating limits of a synchronous device

• Creation of a pre-characterized library

• Behavioral simulation of a simple function

              Establish the flow of information

• Synthesis of a simple function and determination of performance, consumption and surface area

              Configuration - choice of CORNER

              Constraint

              Synthesis

              Establish the flow of information

• Placement and routing and determination of performance, consumption and area

              Configuration - choice of CORNERS

              Floorplan (standard-cell, power grid)

              Placement

              Clockshaft (CTS)

              Routing

              Establish the flow of information

• Consideration of the feeding grid for the determination of the performance

              Configuration - choice of CORNER

              Creation of libraries

              Analysis

              Establish the flow of information

CM : 21h

TP : 21h