Lecture 23
Encounter in Depth and Conclusion
Xuan ‘Silvia’ Zhang
Washington University in St. Louis
http://classes.engineering.wustl.edu/ese461/
Some Final Administrative Stuff
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Class Project Presentation
• Presentation order
– Team 1 through 5
– 16min per team (14min presentation + 2min Q&A)
– all team members must participate
• Suggested contents
– brief intro
– design approach/debug methods
– behavioral simulation results
– design compiler results, post-synthesis simulation
– physical layout
– achieved performance (speed, power, area)
– lesson learned
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Final Project Report
• Due on 12/12 at noon
• Single submission as a team
• Required contents
– design strategy (techniques applied)
– achieved performance
• report where the numbers come from
– detailed explanation on the simulation results
• behavioral simulation
• synthesized simulation
– digest of the timing, power, and area reports
– division of work, individual contribution
– appendix: all source codes, netlist, screen capture, etc
(see final project description)
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Course Evaluation
• Appreciate your feedback
• Start on today
• Please complete by December 12th
• Will account for 3 points in the final grade
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Encounter in Depth
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Chapter 4: Data Preparation
• Technology file
– design rules and physical library: .LEF
• I/O assignment
– manually create I/O assignment file
• Timing libraries
– .lib
• Timing constraints
– .sdc (write_sdc)
• Check designs
– checkDesign
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Chapter 5: Importing and Exporting Designs
• Prepare the netlist
– synthesized netlist with unique cell types (.syn.v)
• Begin with LEF and Verilog
– page 123
• Load config files
– loadConfig
• Save and restore designs
• Import and export design data
– floorplan, I/O, etc.
• Convert to GDSII
– setStreamOutMode
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Chapter 12: Floorplanning the Design
Chapter 13: Power Planning and Routing
• Utilization
• Edit Pins
– use the Pin Editor: spreading pins, spacing
• Resize and Rotate
• Add core ring
– core ring, block ring
• Add stripes
– core area, over block area
• Global net connections
– globalNetConnect –type pgpin –pin pin_name –all -
override
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Chapter 15: Placing the Design
• Prepare for placement
– checkDesign, checkPlace
– timeDesign –prePlace
– createObstruct (no need)
– planDesign or manual place and fix hard blocks
• Add well-tap and end-cap cells
• Place standard cells
– placeDesign
– setPlaceMode
• Check Placement
– checkPlace
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Chapter 16: Synthesizing Clock Trees
• Clock tree specification file
– automatic mode
• Pre-CST and post-CST optimization
– ckECO –preRoute
– ckECO –clkRouteOnly
– ckECO –postRoute
– reportClockTree -postRoute
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Chapter 16: Synthesizing Clock Trees
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Chapter 20: Using the NanoRoute Router
• Routing Phases
– global routing
– detailed routing: switch boxed (SBoxes)
• Preparation
– checkPlace, verifyGeometry (optional)
• Specify routing layer
– -routeBottomRoutingLayer
– -routeTopRouting Layer
• Routing commands
– routeDesign, setNanoRouteMode, setAttribute
– globalRoute, detailRoute
• Check congestion
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Monitoring and Verification
• Utilization (floorplanning)
– target utilization (TU=%), effective utilization (EU=%)
• Congestion analysis table
• Verify violations (Chapter 34)
– connectivity
– metal density
– geometry
– antennas
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Conclusion
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Topics Covered
• Technology and Methods
– digital binary logic, Moore’s Law
– level of abstraction -> design automation principles
• Design Flow
– Algorithmic and architecture optimization
– Synthesis: power, area, timing constraints
– Static Timing Analysis
– Physical Design: floorplan, place and route
• Languages and Tools
– Verilog, Tcl
– Synopsys VCS (Verilog Simulation)
– Synopsys Design Compiler (Netlist Synthesis)
– Cadence SOC Encounter (Physical Design)
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The Trend: Follow, Catch, or Create?
• Intelligent Recognition
– computer vision, artificial intelligence
• Internet of Things
– Sensing (Analog)
– Computing (Digital)
– Wireless (RF)
– Energy harvesting (Power)
• Software-Hardware Co-design
– Analog/Digital/Mixed Signal/Radio…
– Interface/Communication/Internet/Cloud…
– Application/Regulation/Resource/Material…
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ESE 566A: Modern System-on-Chip Design
• Advanced topics
– system-on-chip
– software/hardware partition
– high-level synthesis
– reliability, resilience, security
• More Project-centric
• More open-ended and research-oriented
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Research Theme (XZ Group)
• Problem
– designing micro-scale autonomous systems with
enhanced security and resilience.
• Approach
– co-design of algorithm, computer architecture,
circuits, and sensing and actuation mechanisms.
• Projects
– reconfigurable deep learning hardware
– energy-efficient software-assisted power delivery
– verifiable hardware against side-channel attack
– sensor-fusion chip for vision-based robotic control
– analog-coprocessor to speed up scientific computing
– novel devices for non-reciprocal energy transfer
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Questions?
Comments?
Discussion?
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