Category Archives: Design

Paper 6: Formally Verifying WARP-V, an Open-Source TL-Verilog RISC-V Core Generator

This paper introduces TL-V erilog and W ARP-V and then describes the formal verification of WARP-V using riscv-formal, a formal verification framework for RISC-V. Timing-abstraction and transaction-level design are showing significant benefits for hardware modeling, but this is the first demonstration of their benefits for verification modeling. As evidence of these benefits, the verification of all RISC-V configurations of WARP-V is accomplished in a single page of code.

Continue reading

Paper 2: PNR for digital core IC to pads using Cloud based eda tool

A simple chip frequency divider but most prominently used in counter modules of a microproceesor or as standalone IC can be completely designed from Verilog code to layout . A complete chip with IO pins and labels on it can be designed with help of efabless cloud based eda tool just like a commercial IC. There are two toolbox in efabless one is CloudV for Verilog or c code & other is Open Galaxy for backend design for designing commercial like IC with zero cost involved & same can be given to Semiconductor foundries for mass production. From Preparation , synthesis to DRC cleanup using Q flow manager a Core part of IC can be obtained with log files of each stage used in this process. A innovative feature of interactive DRC under Magic tool enables the designer to rectify DRC violations on the spot. Moreover, ESD protection is also available under Opengalaxy tool for use of chip in electrosensitive applications.

Continue reading

Symposium V – Machine Intelligence in EDA/CAD applications

Symposium V – Machine Intelligence in EDA/CAD applications- Let’s investigate a simple Wire Resistance Estimate (WiRE) model
This is common design automation problem which is used for estimating timing and power characteristics for analysis and implementation for many steps in ASIC flow. We will restrict our scope to physical implementation only, where known quantity is “length” of wire and resistance is predicted.

Continue reading

Symposium I – Front-end open-source EDA tool flows for IC design and verification

Question – Who doesn’t want a 3.5X improvement in their code size? I guess everyone wants efficient and effective improvement. Now these are just few tips to have the easy implementation of pipe-line. You are free to implement your ideas in TL-verilog, compile, simulate and see the improvements on your own. For few more tips, you might want to check out below course on “VSD – Pipelining RISC-
V with TL-verilog”

Continue reading

From VLSI to System Design (SoC) – The choice of SPI

SPI model is a master/slave model. There’s some SPI master which determines who gets to transmit and who gets to receive. The output from SPI master is called MOSI (Master Out Slave In). If you have 2 slaves, slave 1 and slave 2, as shown below, MOSI goes to all the slaves .Then you have another line MISO (Master In Slave Out). All the wires are connected, as shown in below image. Then you have a master only function called SCLK, which goes to all the slaves. Now also, there must be a slave select (SS) for S1 and a slave select for S2.

Continue reading

PPA (power, performance, area) card

A PPA card like the above, is something which every VLSI engineer should be carrying like a business card. Why? Right from RTL to synthesis to PNR to signoff, we do things like upsize, downsize, VT swap, and many more, and all these factors impacts or tweaks your design PPA in one way or the other.
Let’s take an example of ‘downsize’

Continue reading