EE4 & MSc course on ASIC Design Imperial College London Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering M.Eng. Fourth Year Course MSc in Analouge & Digital IC Design Digital IC Design (Autumn 2010) Prof Peter Y. K. Cheung Aim The aim of this course is to introduce the basics of digital integrated circuits design. Learning Outcomes/Objectives After following this course you will be able to: Comprehend the different issues related to the development of digital integrated circuits including fabrication, circuit design, implementation methodologies, testing, design methodologies and tools and future trends. Use tools covering the back-end design stages of digital integrated circuits. Description and Assessment The course covers the whole range of basic issues related to digital integrated circuit design and development. A significant part of the course is taken up by a group design project in which students design an integrated circuit. The written examination in May/June (open book) contributes 75% to the overall mark while the project contributes 25%. Teaching Assistant MSc: Dr Sumanta Chaudhuri or Zhenyu Guan MEng: Josh Lavine Syllabus Integrated circuits trends Digital integrated circuits implementation methodologies MOS devices theory SPICE simulation CMOS fabrication Inverters and combinational circuits Sequential circuits Clocking and timing issues Interconnect issues Arithmetic and data path circuits Memories and array circuits Low power design Packaging, power and I/O issues Testing and design for testability Design methodologies and tools Full-custom IC design project Textbooks N. H. E. Weste and D. Harris, CMOS VLSI Design: A Circuits and Systems Perspective, 3rd Edition , Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-321-14901-7, May 2004. J. Rabaey , A. Chandrakasan , B. Nikolic , Digital Integrated Circuits: A Design Perspective 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0131207644, January 2003. W. Wolf, Modern VLSI Design: System-on-Chip Design, 3rd Edition, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-061970-1, 2002. M.J.S. Smith, Application-Specific Integrated Circuits , Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-50022-1, 1997. L. A. Glasser and D. W. Dobberpuhl , The Design and Analysis of VLSI Circuits . Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-12580-3, 1985. Detailed analysis of circuits, but largely nMOS . C. A. Mead and L. A. Conway, Introduction to VLSI Systems . Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-04358-0, 1980. The first textbook in this subject, a bit old! Here are layout plots of chips designed by students who did this course in previous years. Check it out! Lecture Schedule and Notes (Autumn 2009) Week Lectures Laboratory/Project Extras 2 1 - Introduction and Trends (1up) None Original Moore's paper Moore's Law ITRS 2009 Design 3 2 - Basic MOS Theory, SPICE Simulation(1up) (4up) 3 - Fabrication Process (1up) (4up) Lab 1 Learning Electric & SPICE simulation Electric User Manual ( html ) A brief overview on SPICE Short-cut keys for Electric Interactive commands for WinSPICE SPICE device model for 0.18 micron TSMC-like process 4 5 - Layout(1up) (4up) Lab 2 Using Electric for Layout MOSIS scmos design rules lab2_lib.pdf (download & rename as lab2.elib) 5 6 - Combinational Circuits (1up)(4up) Lab 3 Switch-level simulation with IRSIM IRSIM command summary IRSIM User Manual IRSIM tech file (tsmc18.prm) 6 7 - Clocking Strategies (4up) 8 - Latches & Registers (4up) Design Project Spec 7 9 - Datapath Circuits (4up) Design Project 8 10 - Memory Circuits (4up) Design Project 9 11 - Logical Efforts (4up) Design Project Paper by Ivan Sutherland 10 12 - Testing (4up) Design Project CAD Tools The CAD Tools described below are all free and will run under Windows-XP. You will find that all these packages are installed in the Departmental computers. However, I would encourage you to install them on your notebook. Layout You will be using an excellent software package known as Electric for front-end entry of schematic and layout design. You can download Electric and install it for MS Windows, Linux and Mac OS. Since Electric Version 8.11 is written in Java, you also need to have Java Run-time Environment installed. Circuit Simulation You should use the excellent WinSpice for Windows. (Note that you should download this program and rename it WinSpice1.06.00.exe. This is an evaluation copy and will work with your circuit.) Switch-level Simulation You should use Irsim for switch and RC-level simulation. This is now part of the Electric System. Other useful information Design rules (based on MOSIS Scalable CMOS Design Rules) (click here for pdf file) s SPICE device model can be found here. IRSIM Most Frequently Used commands and User Manual (pdf format) This page is maintained by Peter Cheung Last updated: 9 Dec 2010
