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Introduction to ASICs

Module: 1
Evolution of VLSI
Evolution of integration level in Integrated Circuits

Year Era No. of transistors/gates on


a single chip
1958 Single transistor 1

1960 Monolithic IC 1-2

1962 Multi-function 2 – 10

1964 Small Scale Integration (SSI) 10 – 100

1967 Medium Scale Integration (MSI) 100 – 1000

1972 Large Scale Integration (LSI) 1000 - 10,000

1978 Very Large Scale Integration 10,000 - 1,00,000


(VLSI)
1989 Ultra Large Scale Integration 1,00,000 - 10,00,000
(ULSI)
Level of integration for Intel microprocessors
Types of Integrated Circuits

Classifications of Integrated Circuits


Based on types Based on types Based on the types of Based on the
of substrates of devices signals such as analog, applications
digital, mixed & RF
Digital IC: these ICs are TTL-equivalent ICs at SSI,
Silicon Bi-polar operated with only digital MSI & LSI levels. e,g;
signals memory, micro-
processors
Appl. Specific Standard
Ga-As CMOS Analog IC Products (ASSP). e.g; a
chip for PC, Modem.
ASIC. e,g; a chip for
Si-Ge Bi-CMOS Mixed-signal IC mobile phone, satellite,
soft-toys, etc.

Si-Ge MESFET RF IC ASIC. e,g; a chip for


radar.
Types of ASICs

Depending on the application, cost of production, performance & volume


of production, there are different types of ASIC are followed to implement
on a chip:

» FPGA Design
» Gate Array (GA) Design
» Standard Cell Based Design
» Full Custom Design
» Semi Custom Design
» PLD Design
FPGA Design

Merit – It provides a
Means for fast proto-
Typing and also for cost
Effective chip-design,
especially for low-volume
Applications.

• Typical design time:


Few hours to a couple of
days.
Detailed view of Switch Matrices & Interconnection Routing
between CLBs
Gate Array (GA) Design

GA architectures: i) Channeled ii) Channel – less iii) Structured

• In GA architecture transistors are fabricated on the silicon wafer, but the


inter-connections are not fabricated.

• The metal musk layers are customized to define inter-connections between


the transistors.

• GA design time typically varies from a few days to few weeks. Ranked after
FPGA design.
Standard Cell-based Design
Full Custom & Semi Custom Design
• As the full-custom design starts from the scratch, all the chips are
highly optimized for area, power and delay. Hence the full-custom
design is always superior to any other design styles.
• Merit: Used for high performance and high volume products. But
typical design style is higher compared to other designs.

• In semi-custom design, only few cells are designed from beginning,


which are not available in the std. cell library.
• Merit: Faster compared to full-custom design, but slower than std.
cell based design.
• Performance wise: It is superior to std. cell based design, but inferior
to the full-custom design.
ASIC Design
Flow & Automation
PLD Design

Read Only Memory (ROM)

An 8 X 4 ROM architecture
PLD Design (contd.)

Programmable Array Logic (PAL)

Block diagram of PAL architecture


PLD Design (contd.)

Programmable Logic Array (PLA)

Block diagram of PLA architecture


Comparison of Design Styles

Full- Std. cell- Gate array FPGA


custom based
Area Small Small to Moderate Large
moderate
Performance High High to Moderate Low
moderate

Fabrication All All Metal layers None


layers

Design time High High to Moderate Low


moderate

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