Become Zero to Hero in vlsi design

The design and optimization of integrated circuits (ICs) are essential to the

production of new semiconductor chips.

The design-cycle of VLSI-chips consists of different consecutive steps from high-

level synthesis (functional design) to production (packaging).

The physical design is the process of transforming a circuit description into the

physical layout, which describes the position of cells and routes for the

interconnections between them

Physical design produces an Integrated chip for used in application ranging from

military ,consumer appliances, entertainment gadget ,mobile and so on.

The main concern in the physical design of VLSI-chips is to find a layout with

minimal area, further the total wirelength has to be minimized

Due to its complexity, the physical design is normally broken in various sub-steps:

1. First the circuit has to be partitioned to generate some (up to 50) macro

cells.

2. In the floorplanning phase the cells have to be placed on the layout surface.

3. After placement the global routing has to be done. In this step the `loose'

routes for the interconnections between the single modules (macro cells) are

determined.

4. In the detailed routing the exact routes for the interconnection wires in the

channels between the macro cells have to be computed.

5. The last step in the physical design is the compaction of the layout, where it

is compressed in all dimensions so that the total area is reduced.

This classical approach of the physical design is strongly serial with many

interdependencies between the sub-steps.

This course is update every week

Thanks